Which highschool would you pick for your kid? (Batavia, Deerfield: 2013, homes)
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Sorry hworth, the full methodology of US News is quite extensive. The weight for how many kids take the AP tests is in the formula, as is the success rate of students taking the AP tests (quality-adjusted AP or IB participation rate) which is actually the THIRD PART OF THE SIEVING PROCESS. The first is a two pronged test -- the kids HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN STATE AVERAGES (and Illinois' abysmal averages are a real mess...) AND the kids in economically disadvantaged situations have to look good in a model that assess THE VARIANCE of how many low-income do better than a statistical model would predict. THAT IS A PRETTY DARNED GOOD INDICATION that the motivation of the students and the skills of the teachers are being measured. I happen to know some teachers at Morgan Park and trust me, that is much "nicer" environment than schools with similar demographics...
No ranking is perfect but for the reasons cited above I think the US News methodology is about as good as we have. Toss in the fact that is national and so many schools release data to allow for complete analysis and there is nothing to really knock it for...
ALL THAT SAID, I still preferred their OLDER REPORTING METHODS that emphasized tiers and de-emphasized an ordinal ranking BECAUSE IT IS MY EXPERIENCE that schools do in fact shift up or down a few dozen places based largely on the specific mix of kids taking the AP tests year-to-year -- thus if one sticks with a ranking for any school in the Silver tier you are really looking at schools where the most capable students have essentially similar odds of success...
Of course as somebody that has in the past helped folks relocate and find a home I also find the correlation between school performance and affluence extremely hard to ignore and thus I do strongly recommend that folks give serious consideration to buying a home in the area with the highest average housing values / greatest median household incomes. A side effect of this is often that such areas do have fewer low income students. Of course since I also recommend that folks carefully shop for "the most affordable home in the nicest part of town" it is fairly likely that they may in fact be improving the "median income" statistics by helping an older home owner (or one that faced financial hardship and did little to improve / maintain their property) move into a more affordable situation...
I am with Holl1ngsworth on this one. As I have posted on other threads, the US News methodology is profoundly flawed and highly subjective. When you work your way through the methodology, you can see numerous points where the subjective bias of US comes through. In other words, this is merely what their subjective opinion of a great school should be rather than which schools are really achieving the best.
All you have to do is look at the public school rankings. In addition to what Holl1ngsworth has pointed out, look at the number six ranked public school. Something called Infinity Math Science and Tech HS. It is ranked above all public schools except Stevenson, Deerfield, Hinsdale Central, Highland Park, and Hersey. So it is ranked better than New Trier, Lake Forest, Libertyville, all the Napervilles and Wheatons, etc. But guess what. At this very highly ranked school, 75% of the students cannot read! 56% cannot do math (kind of a problem for a math academy). That kind of ranking would never happen if a sound methodology was used. Would anyone rather send their kid to Infinity rather than New Trier? US News says you should.
I can appreciate that US News uses a "model" to evaluate the schools, but the bottom line is that when there are that many anomalous outputs you have to seriously question the inputs. Lake Park, Sandburg, and Batavia are three examples of high performing schools that don't even rank according the the mag's formula. Meanwhile Niles North, Elmwood Park, and Fenton feature prominently on the list.
US News rankings can be a useful source if you are familiar with Illinois high schools and can easily sift through the aberrations -- but the list is just awful for those new to the area trying to get an idea of which schools are desirable and which are not. It's all over the place.
Well, I can't speak to the Illinois schools, but knowing the Texas school quite well, I'm with H'worth, wjj, and 4122 on this one. Agree with Chet on the tiers and overall stability of ranking of a particular school, however.
When I was discriminating between the public high school, private (at astronomical fees), and a health science magnet school for my kids, I researched the stats and ranking from various sources...they all seemed quite similar. All were ranked in the top 150 nation-wide, but interestingly, quite spread out amongst the top 75 of Texas. The health science magnet beat out all of the others, in the top 25 schools in the state, top 100 nation-wide.
Confusing the mix was an arts-magnet hs nearby that beat out these 3 stellar schools! Why? because they had an emphasis on journalism/English, and reading. I can only guess that this helped pump up their score via the reading/English AP exams and on the SATs. It was ranked in the top 50 Nationwide, beating out the health-science magnet by over 20 points. this was a conundrum, as only about 60-70% took the AP test, with 60% passing, as compared to the higher stats for the hs mag.
Locally, everyone knew that the acceptance into colleges, especially the top-tier institutions, were monopolized by the private school and health-science magnet school. So, this journalism hs mag was a red herring.
The curriculum at the h-s magnet was much more rigorous than all of the others- they were at least a year, if not two, ahead of the others academically. Their science and math courses during the junior and senior years that were on par (using the same texts and difficulty) with that of a first-year college or university. In addition to the regular hs curriculum, they had to also take various medical and clinical courses.
Still puzzled, I took my research a step further, and called the top colleges and universities of Texas (Rice, UT, SMU, and a few others), speaking to the admissions offices about these 3 and other city high schools. Well, that was eye-opening!
I asked them which students (from specific high schools) they would choose over the other, given similar hs SAT scores. Without hesitation, they all placed the health-science magnet first by far!
The feeling was that the h-s mag students were more prepared to handle the rigors of college studies, excelled, and had less drop-out or extension rates. These colleges also felt that the h-s mag students "knew how to study", and "excelled" over the others once at higher educational institutions. The college admissions counselors recognized that the h-s mag students may have lower GPA's, because of the intense competition amongst the "brightest of the bright", and the difficulty of that school's curriculum...but they took that into account. So, being in the top 25% at the hs mag was basically equal to being in the top 10% of the other high schools.
Finally, the hs mag produced three times the amount of PSAT national merit scholar and commended students over and above all of the rest.
The greatest surprise was their less-than-stellar opinion about the pricey private schools. At 18-25K per year, this was a relief to us!
One reason this hs mag school might have ranked lower than others in-state and nationally, is that a significant number of these kids were either newly-arrived from other countries, or were first-generation American, with English as their second language. The school is located in the medical section of my city, with many of their physician parents working at the numerous hospitals or the medical/dental university. So, their reading comprehension, although admirable, wasn't as stellar as some of the other top-ranked state schools.
So, we sent our kids to the hs magnet school, where they did very well. It was a stepping-stone to liberal arts colleges now nationally ranked in the top 15! My son was accepted into all of the military academies as well, and did go that route. He is one of only a few from all of the other high schools mentioned that currently has both a stable and well-paying job, and also is doing the exciting things he only dreamed of whilst in middle and high school.
Therefore, one has to dissect the methodology further, and accept that there are other factors which mitigate the rankings. The key for us was to contact the receiving institutions of higher learning. It saved us tens of thousands of dollars for what was, perhaps, a much better high school!
I am with Holl1ngsworth on this one. As I have posted on other threads, the US News methodology is profoundly flawed and highly subjective. When you work your way through the methodology, you can see numerous points where the subjective bias of US comes through. In other words, this is merely what their subjective opinion of a great school should be rather than which schools are really achieving the best.
All you have to do is look at the public school rankings. In addition to what Holl1ngsworth has pointed out, look at the number six ranked public school. Something called Infinity Math Science and Tech HS. It is ranked above all public schools except Stevenson, Deerfield, Hinsdale Central, Highland Park, and Hersey. So it is ranked better than New Trier, Lake Forest, Libertyville, all the Napervilles and Wheatons, etc. But guess what. At this very highly ranked school, 75% of the students cannot read! 56% cannot do math (kind of a problem for a math academy). That kind of ranking would never happen if a sound methodology was used. Would anyone rather send their kid to Infinity rather than New Trier? US News says you should.
There is nothing "subjective" about a model that allows for very small schools with 98% low income enrollment to be ranked higher than schools many times larger with nearly no low income students, this is to be expected in an OBJECTIVE ranking that accounts for the historic association of low income students with poor performance.
Is there really any doubt that there is no overlap between the harried inner city families looking for some alternative to the shamefully poorly run CPS high school and folks considering high performing suburban high schools? The former group desperately wants some indication that a particular charter school inside Chicago has at least some credibility while the latter is splitting hairs over which will enable their precious offspring a better looking application to a highly selective college.
Similarly there is a HUGE difference between using the proficiency rankings to help assess what kinds of students one may expect at a school like Infinity vs the utterly disgusting exaggeration of saying the students not rated as proficient "cannot read" -- the overtones suggest that someone needs at least some sensitivity training unless their real goal is to find adherents for their radical world view -- it is ought to come as no surprise that such a person would single out a school in Chicago's Little Village area. Little Village Lawndale/Enlace Chicago Community School ← That the school also has the lowest average teacher salary among Charters should say volumes about what kind of staff it attracts -- $25K spread in average teacher pay | catalyst-chicago.org
Really, if you truly hold such views it is better to be quiet about them...
I can appreciate that US News uses a "model" to evaluate the schools, but the bottom line is that when there are that many anomalous outputs you have to seriously question the inputs. Lake Park, Sandburg, and Batavia are three examples of high performing schools that don't even rank according the the mag's formula. Meanwhile Niles North, Elmwood Park, and Fenton feature prominently on the list.
US News rankings can be a useful source if you are familiar with Illinois high schools and can easily sift through the aberrations -- but the list is just awful for those new to the area trying to get an idea of which schools are desirable and which are not. It's all over the place.
I'm with you on the tiers though, Chet.
This! So good. I think these rankings are for sure not taking everything into account, especially with Batavia, the unfairly maligned Tri-City high school in the Fox Valley.
There is nothing "subjective" about a model that allows for very small schools with 98% low income enrollment to be ranked higher than schools many times larger with nearly no low income students, this is to be expected in an OBJECTIVE ranking that accounts for the historic association of low income students with poor performance.
Are you serious? Really? You just don't get it do you?
Is there really any doubt that there is no overlap between the harried inner city families looking for some alternative to the shamefully poorly run CPS high school and folks considering high performing suburban high schools? The former group desperately wants some indication that a particular charter school inside Chicago has at least some credibility while the latter is splitting hairs over which will enable their precious offspring a better looking application to a highly selective college.
Huh?
Similarly there is a HUGE difference between using the proficiency rankings to help assess what kinds of students one may expect at a school like Infinity vs the utterly disgusting exaggeration of saying the students not rated as proficient "cannot read" -- the overtones suggest that someone needs at least some sensitivity training unless their real goal is to find adherents for their radical world view -- it is ought to come as no surprise that such a person would single out a school in Chicago's Little Village area. Little Village Lawndale/Enlace Chicago Community School ← That the school also has the lowest average teacher salary among Charters should say volumes about what kind of staff it attracts -- $25K spread in average teacher pay | catalyst-chicago.org
Really, if you truly hold such views it is better to be quiet about them...
You can come down off the ledge now.
If you really think that ranking a school where 75% of the students are failing at reading and 56% are failing at math over schools like New Trier, Lake Forest, Libertyville, and the Napervilles is legit, then I think most thoughtful people would consider your views to be the radical views. Give it up. The US News rankings are between useless and dangerous for someone coming new into this area with a high achieving son or daughter looking for a high achieving school. t
If you really think that ranking a school where 75% of the students are failing at reading and 56% are failing at math over schools like New Trier, Lake Forest, Libertyville, and the Napervilles is legit, then I think most thoughtful people would consider your views to be the radical views. Give it up. The US News rankings are between useless and dangerous for someone coming new into this area with a high achieving son or daughter looking for a high achieving school. t
There is NOTHING that says kids that don't master the standardized tests are FAILING, it is very likely that kids that enter a school like Infinity are coming from a situation where they will need all kinds of extra work to get to the point where they are ALL mastering EVERY standardized tests. Have you heard of "Stand & Deliver"? Jamie Escalante was teaching CALCULUS to kids that otherwise would have been WRITTEN OFF because they were not native English speakers -- if you can't grok that then maybe you can read the post from the person above that went to the trouble of tracking down how a school in Texas that attracts lots of first generation immigrants actually has a better reputation among actual college admissions staff than school with better test results.
I have yet to meet ANYONE that thinks Little Village is a delightful place for a potential family relocation, why in the h477 would ANYONE target such an area when SEVERAL CPS schools are MUCH more likely to attract attention -- Northside, Payton, Young, Jones and Lincoln Park are all going to be much more likely /obvious destination for folks to try to gain admission to a top tier CPS facility. What is other than "legit" about that? I mean for cripes sake, give people some credit. Nobody is going to mistake the barrio for some awesome family friendly area...
THE ONLY THING TO GIVE UP ON IS YOUR PATHETIC MISGUIDED ATTITUDE -- I generally have to "stick up for the suburbs" but even the most ardent advocate of urban living is NEVER going to try to suggest that any sane relocating families is going to somehow be "dangerously misguided" by attempting to compare an inner city charter school with 98% low income students vs a nice suburban high school surrounded by top flight employers / affluent workers / luxury homes.
Personally, I don't see how you could be in the top of any ranking without high reading scores. Students wouldn't be able to even comprehend what they were reading in either the AP classes or the AP exams.
When I changed the sort based on Reading scores, Infinity Math Science & Tech landed on page 29, and on page 32 the reading scores were N/A up to page 36. In other words, they were at the bottom of the barrel for reading, yet they do better to prepare students for college than Libertyville or Lake Forest. That's funny.
Infinty 15:1 57.0 (75% of 385 tested/51% passed) 2.3 2.0
Lake Forest 14:1 44.7 (47% of 1699 tested/44% passed) 3.1 3.0
Libertyville 16:1 43.8 (46% of 1976 tested/43% passed) 3.2 3.0
Let me add that I don't know about Infinity, but L.F. and L'ville have intense sports/band programs, the involvement in which sometimes deter students from taking AP classes.
Personally, I don't see how you could be in the top of any ranking without high reading scores. Students wouldn't be able to even comprehend what they were reading in either the AP classes or the AP exams.
When I changed the sort based on Reading scores, Infinity Math Science & Tech landed on page 29, and on page 32 the reading scores were N/A up to page 36. In other words, they were at the bottom of the barrel for reading, yet they do better to prepare students for college than Libertyville or Lake Forest. That's funny.
Infinty 15:1 57.0 (75% of 385 tested/51% passed) 2.3 2.0
Lake Forest 14:1 44.7 (47% of 1699 tested/44% passed) 3.1 3.0
Libertyville 16:1 43.8 (46% of 1976 tested/43% passed) 3.2 3.0
Let me add that I don't know about Infinity, but L.F. and L'ville have intense sports/band programs, the involvement in which sometimes deter students from taking AP classes.
If you don't understand what is being measured maybe you should step back and try to wrap your head around the data.
THE PERCENTAGE OF KIDS THAT DO WELL ON THE WEAK ILLINOIS ASSESSMENTS OF READING AND MATH IS NOT THE GERMAINE INFORMATION!
US NEWS uses the success ratio on AP tests BECUASE IT IS A BETTER INDICATOR, it would be like complaining that a Dodge Challenger is faster 0-60 than a 911 while the 911 turns better lap times on the Nurburgring and then trying to say the Challenger is more of a sports car!
The info that you posted is essentially the thing that matters for the ranking -- for Infinity the facts are simple: 288 kids took AP tests, 147 of them managed to score well enough to earn college credit. No doubt a huge number of them were taking things like Calculus, where their relative mastery of Illinois' often silly reading assessment is meaningless...
Similarly, Libertyville, which is a very different kind of school but one that I have recommended to many folks that are facing relocation for a job at Abbott or similar large Lake Co employer has easy to understand statistics too -- 798 kids took AP test, 351 earned credit. An impressive group (band practice and athletics and all, again nice BUT NOT DATA THAT CORRELATES WITH COLLEGE SUCCESS), but CLEARLY not nearly as impressive on a PERCENTAGE of the whole school basis -- barely 20% compared to about 38% at Infinity. Factor in the otherwise dismal prospects that those low income kids in Little Village would face and NO WONDER the US News methodology gives those kids / teachers a huge "shout out"...
I have nothing really BAD to say about Lake Forest either, though it might be a little troubling that despite Lake Forest being an even more affluent area they had slightly less than 20% of kids take AP tests successfully. I know for a fact that the tradition of private school, either locally or at pricey east coast boarding schools that are a kind of generational thing with the uber-affluent, do siphon off a pretty decent percentage of kids from the Lake Forest public schools and it might the rare case where a slightly less affluent school like Libertyville is actually more desirable FROM ONE MEASURE, but given the better student: teacher ratio and likely more posh experience it might be too close to call (and as I have said ALL ALONG, schools do jitter up and down in the ORDINAL RANKINGS from year to year so I would really stick to saying they are both in the DESIRABLE SILVER TIER along with lots of similar nice suburban schools...
I am going to recommend that somebody RELOCATING to the area choose to live in Libertyville over Lake Forest on the basis of a 1% difference in AP success ratio vs school enrollment? Of course. Neither would I recommend that anyone relocating ever WILLING CHOOSE a school with 98% low income students, but IF the motivation and skill that SURELY must be part of the Infinity experience could be unleashed in school that server affluent suburbanites think how much more competitive the whole REGION might be...
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methodology may be slightly flawed
