tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8203221.post8105734709201097158..comments2023-09-07T06:32:12.677-07:00Comments on Richard Sprague: Ranking high schoolsRichard Spraguehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03470273961021829567noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8203221.post-18356430588188434412008-06-01T14:16:00.000-07:002008-06-01T14:16:00.000-07:00Keith, those are excellent points, good reasons wh...Keith, those are excellent points, good reasons why it would be silly to choose a school based on one, simplistic number. <BR/><BR/>But why not trust parents and their kids to make up their own minds? Give them all the statistics, including the Newsweek rankings, and let them decide for themselves. I don't buy a car based solely on the Consumer Reports recommendations -- why would I buy a school system based purely on Newsweek? Wouldn't it always be better to have more ratings than fewer?Richard Spraguehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03470273961021829567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8203221.post-28387250061409450412008-05-31T17:28:00.000-07:002008-05-31T17:28:00.000-07:00Hi Richard - this is Keith Pleas (who sent you tha...Hi Richard - this is Keith Pleas (who sent you that orignal pointer).<BR/><BR/>>> Competition is a good thing and I don’t know how you can improve without a way to keep score.<BR/><BR/>Absolutely. More to my original point though, I don't know how you can make a meaningful investment decision without some measure of the costs AND benefits. In my experience, if you can't quantify the benefits you leave yourself open to emotional (and often counter-productive) decisions.<BR/><BR/>And, yes, any statistical measure has flaws. But if we allow those being judged to pick which measurement THEY want to use, we're just introducing bias into the process - everyone will naturally play the game that justifies their contribution. IMHO, if a school has pretensions at being "elite", then it should participate in any widely used measurement system. And then, if they feel that the results are not "fair" to them, then they can explain their rationale.<BR/><BR/>>> Much better would be seeing how well kids from the different schools actually do in college.<BR/><BR/>Not so fast. If there's an inherent advantage that a district has - proximity to universities, percentage of residens with college degrees, financial resources, whatever - then the relevant measurement would be how much better their kids did solely because of the education system. Meaning, you need to measure enough variables across enough schools that you can factor out income level, distance, et cetera and still have a statistically valid measurement.<BR/><BR/>My personal MI education highlights an additional factor that may be difficult to measure - opportunity. In particular, I was able to take advantage of (at the time) different start times between the schools to enable me to take an early class at MIHS and then walk the short distance to what was at that time North Mercer Junior High. And in high school, I was able to take non-matriculated classes at the UW in the afternoon that were counted towards high school attendance. I was able to do these things because the school system supported me.<BR/><BR/>So - for me - the value of the MI school system wouldn't have been visible in any national averages.<BR/><BR/>My brother (two years behind me) was a National Merit Finalist and Presidential Scholar candidate. Out of curiosity, I just Googled ""presidential scholar" and "mercer island", and found the 2007 list contained 3 students from MIHS (and two from MI who went to Lakeside) compared to 4 from all of Bellevue (one each at Issaquah, Bellevue, Lakeside, and Newport). However, Google didn't return any mention of this in Mercer Island related sites. A search for "presidential scholar" on the Mercer Island School District site returned "Service is too busy" at 5:25pm on Saturday evening. Sheesh.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8203221.post-36399110613789804142008-05-27T09:34:00.000-07:002008-05-27T09:34:00.000-07:00Here's an interesting letter asking not to be incl...Here's an interesting letter asking not to be included in the Newsweek list -- signed by many superintendents, including those from high schools considered among the nation's elite: http://www.sfschools.org/2008/04/school-supes-boycott-newsweek-hs.html.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com