Dive Brief:
- The Daily Beast culled through data on thousands of schools to create its 2014 list of the nation's best high schools.
- The list ranks 735 schools and was determined by four metrics: graduation rates (30%); college acceptance rates (30%); the number of students taking AP, IB, or AICE courses (30%), and college entrance exam scores (10%).
- In addition to the standard list of Top High Schools, The Daily Beast composed a list of the top Changemaker schools, which are 25 schools with a high percentage of free and reduced lunch students who still manage to do the most with the least.
Dive Insight:
According to The Daily Beast, "graduation and college acceptance rates weighed most heavily." But while graduation rates are important, they don't always tell the full story. Students can be passed along and graduate without having the skills to succeed in college or the real world, and that is a major issue. Including college acceptance rates is a slightly more informed indicator, however, again it does not take into account how a student does once they get to college — or even if they finish.
Looking through the list of the top 50 schools, only 21 (less than half) are schools where students are chosen at random (in other words, a lottery or just because they are truly open to all). The rest are "selective" in some manner. While it's amazing to see so many schools succeeding with a randomized population of students — in other words, indicating they can take any student and make them successful — its always important to read the fine print. Looking at the free and reduced lunch rates of the 21 truly open-to-all schools in the Top 50 reveals that the average rate was a meager 7.8%. While these schools should definitely be lauded, it is important to note their success has something in their favor: They do not have to deal with many of the more troubling and challenging issues that come with districts in more high-poverty neighborhoods.
The Daily Beast supplemented the rankings with an article titled "What Charter Schools Are Getting Right And Why They Top Our High School Rankings." The article was based on the fact that, of the Top 10 Schools, 3 (or 30%) were charter schools. Open enrollment charter schools came in 2nd, 5th and 6th place. What is not said in the article is that two of those schools have free and reduced lunch rates of 0%. This make a massive difference, more so than the "flexibility" the article goes on to attribute for the high rankings. While there are some absolutely fantastic charter schools nationally, and the schools that made the top 10 should be praised, all of the factors affecting a schools' success should be examined before heralding it as the archetype for all schools in that one category.