Posted on May - 18 - 2011
New national high school rankings appear Friday
We moved my annual Challenge Index rankings of American high schools from Newsweek to washingtonpost.com. On Friday May 20 we will unveil the new list on washingtonpost.com. The Post will have a special section for the list in the Sunday paper for May 22.
This year we ranked more than 1,900 schools, all those that met our standard of having given at least as many college-level tests in 2010 as they had graduating seniors.
This is my contrarian way of assessing high schools. I think the standard measures, such as average test scores, reveal not the quality of the education but the affluence of the parents. Since I started producing the Challenge Index in 1998, many teachers and principals have told me that the list, by recognizing which schools try hardest to involve students in college-level courses and tests, put the emphasis where it should be—on what staff are doing to make students better.
Many people disagree with this approach, although as the list has become better known I have heard fewer complaints about the methodology.