The Times gets catty about USNews High School rankings

Here's a fairly catty article from the NYT discussing the new High School rankings published by US News and World Report. If you visit the article's web page you'll notice that the Times went out of their way to avoid providing a link to the USNews site. If you're curious, it is here: USNews: Best High Schools

Lowell came in at #69 on the list. No other SF schools, public or private, were listed.

Putting a Curious Eye on a High School Ranking System By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

That venerable sage, the funk musician Rick James, once said, "R&B stands for rhythm and business." His aphorism is worth remembering while paging through this week’s issue of U.S. News & World Report, which includes the magazine’s first ranking of high schools.

Whatever this list represents in terms of journalism or public service, it must be understood also as an exercise in business, in extending the U.S. News brand, in helping it survive in a financial and technological climate hostile to news magazines. Having devoted annual issues to ranking colleges, graduate schools and hospitals, U.S. News has now brought the same approach to secondary education.

The magazine’s executives frankly acknowledge their economic motivations. In a recent interview, the publisher, Kerry F. Dyer, and the editor, Brian Kelly, referred to the high school ranking as part of a "franchise."

[...]"I thought it’s admirable the way the rankings were done," said David F. Labaree, the associate dean of the Stanford University School of Education. "But if U.S. News’s niche is rankings, that’s a little disquieting. It’s in the magazine’s interest to push rankings into every sector to expand its niche. And that exacerbates the rankings mania that’s harming education at all levels."

I find it curious that 23 of the "Top 100" high schools are from California. That one datum makes me suspicious of their methodology. Either CA ed policy somehow enables greater stratification among schools -- enabling super achievers in an otherwise mediocre landscape, or more likely the USNews researchers were comparing variables that were not consistently reported accross different states. I have no specific basis for my suspicions other than the apparent imbalance in favor of CA schools. In fact, their methodology seems pretty good -- and the lack of SF private schools in the list suggests that they successfully focus on schools that serve not just the college bound high achievers, but identify schools that serve all kids well.