The Washington Post has released a new list of America’s best high schools, and all four RISD schools are named in the ranking. Richardson High and J.J. Pearce fared particularly well, landing in the top 350 schools nationally.
To rank schools, The Post’s Jay Mathews created a “challenge index,” which basically tells how many Advanced Placement (AP) tests the average student took this year. Of RISD schools, Richardson High ranked first with almost 3, Pearce had 2.9, Berkner took 1.9 and LHHS took 1.5.
Though it is an oversimplified view of the complicated work of educating children, the Post hangs their hat on this method, saying “while not a measure of the overall quality of the school, the rating can reveal the level of a high school’s commitment to preparing average students for college.” Mathews previously used the Challenge Index at Newsweek, which is now developing a new method of evaluating high schools.
Dual credit courses, which are college level curriculum taught by college-trained educators, are not considered in the Post’s rankings. Dual credit classes, very popular with RISD students, achieve the same goal as AP – exposing students to more challenging work and preparing them for the college coursework in their future – but are unaffiliated with the AP program. Students who pass dual credit courses have literally passed a Richland College class, and they take that course with them to their college after high school graduation.
The Post also gives, but does not use in its rankings, information on AP test passing rates and student poverty levels. Results from the rankings are below.
- Richardson High School
- CI = 2.926
- E&E = 34.3% (students who scored 3 or higher on AP test / total students enrolled)
- Subsidized lunch = 47%
- Nat’l rank = 329
- J. J. Pearce
- CI = 2.894
- E&E = n/a
- Subsidized lunch = 29%
- Nat’l rank = 337
- Berkner
- CI = 1.854
- E&E = 25.6%
- Subsidized lunch = 49%
- Nat’l rank = 932
- Lake Highlands
- CI = 1.447
- E&E = 26.7%
- Subsidized lunch = 38%
- Nat’l rank = 1355
“With more than 26,000 high schools in the United States, all four RISD high schools ranked among the top 5 percent in the country,” proclaimed the RISD’s School Times Now website.
