Every time U.S. News and World Report issues its Best High School Rankings Index, I think of basketball. Here’s why. If you look at the CBS Sports list of top-ranking high school basketball teams in Pennsylvania, of the top twelve ranking programs only one is a public school. The rest include charter schools, Catholic schools, one private academy, and a Quaker boarding school.
I see two possible explanations for the lack of public schools: either those private schools know some important secrets about coaching basketball, or they benefit from being able to recruit and select the best players for their teams. I’m betting it’s the latter.
When U.S. News announces that charters are marching up the rankings list, it’s pretty important to take a peek at just how those schools are assessed.
So when U.S. News announces that charters are marching up the rankings list, it’s pretty important to take a peek at just how those schools are assessed.
The selection method is a curious one, based on a series of hurdles. First, the school must show that it performed “better than expected” on the Big Standardized Test for its state (e.g. PARCC or SBA). “Better than expected” is based on a statistical model developed to look at genetic trends in cattle. I kid you not. It compares actual test results with an ideal alternative universe. If the real universe student does better than what the model predicts, the model assumes that’s because the teacher and school did something right.The technique has been criticized by statisticians and educators alike, but it remains the first hurdle that a U.S. News Super School must jump. (There is one loophole—all schools that score in the top 10 percent for their state automatically qualify, whether they beat expectations or not.)
The second hurdle is the scores of select groups like “black, Hispanic and low-income” viewed separately from the whole school population. A third hurdle is the school’s graduation rate—is it over 75 percent? Many charter schools are adept at getting around that one, by pushing out low-performing students before they reach senior year. Looking at how many freshmen make it all the way through graduation would be more telling.
Finally, the schools that have made it this far are judged on the AP test rate—how many students take how many advance placement tests. Since the AP test is a product sold by the College Board company, clearing this last gate means that somebody needs to fork over some money. Rating a school based on its AP test rate is like rating a school based on how many of its faculty members drive a Lexus instead of a Ford or BMW.
In fact, because the International Baccalaureate (an AP test competitor) didn’t supply test result data this year, those schools could not win the Super Best Gold Medal. South Dakota, for whatever reason, also refused to play along with Step Four.
So, in short, a U.S. News Tippy Top School is one which enrolls lots of students who are excellent test takers, some of whom belong to a minority group, and who are also willing to—and can afford to—take a bunch of AP tests. That is what’s behind being called a “Great School” by U.S. News.
The rankings ignore everything else going on in the school—like what programs are sacrificed in pursuit of those high test scores.
The rankings ignore everything else going on in the school—like what programs are sacrificed in pursuit of those high test scores.
U.S. News does its selection in conjunction with RTI International, a North Carolina research group, and this particular project is overseen by Ben Dalton. Dalton has a sociology PhD from Duke. After working at American Institutes for Research, the test manufacturer that brought us the Common Core SBA test, he moved to RTI. So, the system for ranking America’s top high schools is run by someone with no actual education background.
And how well does his system actually work?
Well, the fourth best high school in New York doesn’t exist. Blogger Gary Rubinstein did some digging and discovered that the KIPP Academy Charter High School is a clerical collection of about one-third of all the high school students actually enrolled in four KIPP schools in New York.
The BASIS schools that top the U.S. News list do exist, but are a textbook example of how to use a charter school to fill your own pockets. The BASIS chain is essentially one married couple—Michael and Olga Block—who have made millions of dollars for themselves and their family members.
The fourth best high school in New York doesn’t actually exist.
So what, you ask, if they are getting good results? Well, now we’re back to basketball rankings again. Arizona’s student population is about 45 percent Latino; BASIS Latino population is 10 percent. Arizona students are 39 percent white; BASIS is 51 percent white. Arizona students are 3 percent Asian; BASIS is 32 percent. And BASIS enrollment figures show no Native Americans at all. Almost half of Arizona students receive free or reduced lunch. BASIS does not participate in that program at all, so their 0 percent “free lunch” number doesn’t mean they have no poor students, but it does mean that those students must give up that benefit in order to attend BASIS schools!
Charter fans have been gleeful over the list, declaring that the list “teaches that charter schools are working.” If we believe that a “working” school is one where a curated group of students get high standardized test scores and take lots of AP tests, then this victory lap might be justified. Of course, it might also be true that only Catholics really know how to play basketball. But somehow, I don’t think so.