Texas Best High School

It happens every year about this time. Jay Matthews releases the Newsweek List of Best High Schools in America. As soon as that happens the local newspaper runs a front page story about how well our high school fairs using headlines like “Newsweek Honor” and “among America’s finest”. Underneath the headlines several paragraphs remark without detail about the measurement, framed with quotations from a District representative. (Incidentally, her remarks put the “award” into a better reference than the article overall.) Newsweek’s methodology takes the number of AP/IB test taken and divides it by the number of graduating seniors. I don’t know if having every student take an AP exam is a good thing or not. I do know that others claim the list is misleading.


In 2006 Sara Mead and Andrew J. Rotherham co-authored Why Newsweek's List of America's 100 Best High Schools Doesn't Make the Grade. Boiled down to one statement, Our research shows that Newsweek's methodology is far too focused on one discrete indicator of school quality and that many schools that fail to make the Newsweek list may be doing a better job educating all (3T emphasis) of their students. And, in all fairness, Matthews responded to the criticism in a most professional and clearly stated manner. You can hit the links of both for a read. I only mention these to bring attention the fact that there are better means of judging one’s local high school.

Perhaps a better look at America’s Best High Schools comes from U.S. News & World Report. Their list reflects the best high schools that prepare students not only for college preparedness, but for basic skills attainment as well. The basic methodology is a three step process of investigation. Step one looks at state reading and math test performance of the individual school’s students versus the average student of that state. In turn, USN factors that by the number of economically disadvantaged enrolled in the school. Those who qualify move to Step Two which compares the school’s least advantaged students’ state test grades to the state’s average. Step Three invokes what USN calls the College Readiness Index. This computation involves numbers of students taking an AP or IB test with an additional quality factor using test scores.

So how did Texas schools come out in the two lists? Of the 1721 high school campuses listed by TEA, 669 made the USN list with only 122 of those making a Bronze medal or better. That ranked Texas at number 14 between Rhode Island and Colorado. The NW list recorded 127 schools with no state ranking. One cannot really compare Texas schools by either list. One can surmise that the USN list adds an educational depth not seen on the NW list.

What does all of this mean - not much. They are fun to play with, but the ultimate ranking comes from neither US News nor Newsweek, but rather from our own Texas Education Agency as directed by the legislature. It’s not about ranking your school, it’s all about meeting the challenges set by state government. A good place to start is the following three publications: The Texas Education Agency Strategic Plan for the Fiscal Years 2011-2015 (released July 2010); the Evaluation of the Texas High School Project, First Comprehensive Report (released May 2010);and, Closing the Gaps 2015, The Texas Higher Education Plan (originally released October 2000). They are bureaucratically wordy, but well worth the read.