Grading and Ranking Schools

There is no doubt that many high schools across the country have faced serious challenges in light of the current economic slowdown. With shrinking budgets and the pressures of standardized test scores, schools have made difficult decisions regarding staffing, programs, and resources. With attention to these circumstances, the annual ranking conducted by Newsweek made some significant changes to take the challenges into account. With an expanded advisory board and a wider range of criteria, the publication recently released its ranking of the top 500 high schools in America. We’ll examine the criteria used by Newsweek to make their choices and highlight some of the schools that made the top of the list this year.

In this TEDTalk, Elizabeth Daves peels back the layers of the practice of ranking students, exposes the negative impact that ranking has on those being ranked, and calls for a shift in mindset about what learning, and teaching, means.

How Best to Rank High Schools?

When Newsweek embarked on this project for the current year, it was no easy task. In previous years, the publication had ranked schools based solely on the number of AP tests taken by each graduate at the school, according to a report at the Huffington Post. This year, Newsweek wanted to focus less on mere achievement and more on the solutions high schools were using to ensure the

For decades, studies have shown that schools with a high number of students living in poverty do not experience the same academic success as schools in wealthier districts. Many programs have been instituted to narrow the gap since the "War on Poverty" was launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 and the Elementary and Secondary School Act of 1965 was established.

Unfortunately, recent reports show that instead of narrowing the poverty gap, there is a growing divide between low and high-income students at public schools.

The Condition of Education 2010

The Condition of Education 2010 has recently been released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). This annual report is federally mandated to provide an assessment of the condition of the educational system in the United States. This year's findings were sobering, as they indicate that the gap between high and low-poverty schools is a widening one.

According to the report, high-poverty schools are defined as institutions where at least 75% of the students enrolled are eligible for the free or reduced-price lunch program. Approximately 6 million elementary students and one million secondary students are enrolled in high-poverty schools today.

This video looks at the disparity between rich and poor school districts.

Characteristics of High-Poverty Schools

The NCES report looks at a variety of characteristics of high-poverty schools, including:

• Locations of the schools
• Characteristics of the students
• Qualifications and characteristics of