Most people know the words "challenging" and "best" don't mean the same thing. But that hasn't stopped Newsweek from confusing the two in a recent article that ranked every public high school in the United States. Not only are these rankings a ploy for publicity, but they also are flawed and misleading.
When I first saw these rankings, I believed them, until I looked deeper into the issue. Newsweek ranked schools according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews, an education reporter at the Washington Post, based on the number of Advanced Placement tests taken by all students at a school, divided by the number of graduating seniors. AP tests are supposed to demonstrate to colleges that a student can handle a college-level class, and many students use AP tests as tools for getting into good colleges.
If you haven't noticed already, there's a serious problem with this formula. It's based on the idea that the more a school pushes a student to take AP tests, the more a school challenges a student, and hence, the better the school.
But the rankings don't consider how well a school does on these tests. A school ranked very high on the Newsweek list can have students getting low scores on AP tests, while a lower-ranked school can have most of its students getting high scores on AP tests. It doesn't make sense to rank something on quality when the actual performance doesn't matter. When the NFL season ends, do you see the Lombardi trophy given to the team that has the most grueling practices and training camps? No, because results and performance matter.
When 70 percent of students at a school ranked highly by Newsweek perform poorly on AP tests, as the New York Times found, the purpose of education and learning is defeated. There is no point in doing something if it isn't done right. Otherwise, all you're going to end up with is an incomplete final product and a bunch of wasted time.
Also, some schools have prerequisites for taking an AP class, while others don't. This bars many students from taking an AP class and hence, schools without prerequisites have advantages in the Newsweek rankings. These prerequisites exist so students don't overburden themselves and find themselves in situations they can't handle. This is a worthwhile approach, but it leads to a lower ranking under the Newsweek method.
Mathews, the creator of the rankings, acknowledges that his method doesn't include factors such as how well a school performs in math and science competitions because such things can't be quantified. In that case, why try to measure something that is inherently unquantifiable? Ranking schools against other schools is a subjective process.
People should put little weight on these rankings because they're created with the intention of selling more magazines. "I know last year's issue sold very well and that's why we did it again," Mathews told the New York Times.
"I would have preferred we call the list the most challenging schools. But I will defend 'Best.' 'Best' is a very elastic term in our society."
So, does everybody get to pick their own method to rank the best schools? If so, I'll just go out on a limb and say that my school, Palo Alto High, is the best school in the entire country. But instead of using the ranking that Newsweek gave us -- 300-something -- we like to think as ourselves as No. 1 -- the title granted to us by being state basketball champions for 2006.