Another year and another contrived Newsweek America’s Top High School poll…..

The Sturgis Charter School is the 43rd top high schools in the country according to a formula developed by Jay Mathews of Newsweek Magazine.

Six other Massachusetts high schools finished in the Newsweek Top 500 in the United States, with the MATCH Charter School in Boston finishing 25th.

The MATCH Charter school's enrollment is 62% African American, 32% Hispanic, 2% Asian, 4% White, but more importantly 72% of the students come from poverty level families.

The next closest Massachusetts high schools to MATCH, and Sturgis Charter Schools was Boston Latin at 115th place.

The other Massachusetts high schools making the top 500 were Belmont Hight School (#155), Dover-Sherborn Regional High School (#271), Lexington High School (#458), and Mount Greylock Regional High School (#473), all with single digit low-income enrollments, and members of the most wealthy families in the state.

Newsweek's poll is limited to schools using International Baccalaureate, and Advanced Placement programs, ruling out 95% of all high schools in the country.

For example of the 225 public high schools in Massachusetts, only a handful offer Baccalaureate program and Advanced Placement programs,

but all are tested through a common MCAS test.

Following are lists of the six Massachusetts high schools that made the top 500 Newsweek high schools poll, and Barnstable High School, using the 2007 tenth grade Math and English MCAS test results ranked by the best grades.

The first sorted list ranks the schools on the basis of the percentage of students with “Advanced” math test scores, or A grades;

MATH    ADVANCED
   

1. BOSTON LATIN            55%
2. DOVER-SHERBORN      54%
3. MOUNT GREYLOCK     54%
4. LEXINGTON                 51%
5. BELMONT                    48%
6. STURGIS                      39%
7. BHS                             32%
8. MATCH                        11%

Boston Latin (#115), Dover Sherborn (271), and Mount Greylock (#473) were in a virtual dead heat, followed closely by Lexington (#458), and Belmont (#155).

Only 11% of MATCH students earned “A” grades.

Sturgis (#43) is ranked 6th on the list.

Curiously Barnstable High School that was ranked 175th of the 225 high schools in Massachusetts MCAS scores, had 32% of its students earn “A” grades which is 22% greater than MATCH, the top ranked Newsweek Massachusetts.

Following are the percentages and rankings of “Advanced” students taking the 2007 Tenth Grade English MCAS test;
 
ENGLISH    ADVANCED
   

1. BOSTON LATIN            97%
2. LEXINGTON                 76%
3. MATCH                        76%
4. BELMONT                    74%
5. DOVER-SHERBORN      68%
6. MOUNT GREYLOCK     52%
7. STURGIS                      52%
8. BHS                             39%

Boston Latin virtually doubled the Sturgis students despite its distant to MATCH and Sturgis Newsweek ranking.

The best Sturgis could do on the English MCAS test was to finish in a dead heat with Mount Greylock, and ahead of Barnstable High School.

The following ranks the eight high schools by the total percentage of students in combined Advanced and Proficient math categories (A’s & B’s)

MATH    A'S & B'S
   

1. BOSTON LATIN           99%
2. STURGIS                     97%
3. DOVER-SHERBORN     97%
4. LEXINGTON                92%
5. BELMONT                   89%
6. MOUNT GREYLOCK     84%
7. MATCH                        83%
8. BHS                             75%

Boston Latin, Sturgis, Dover-Sherborn, and Lexington were in a virtual dead heat, with Newsweek’s top-ranked school finishing seventh just ahead of unranked Barnstable High School.

The last ranking is the combined Advanced/Proficient English MCAS averages scores;

ENGLISH    A'S & B'S
   

1. BOSTON LATIN            100%
2. MATCH                        100%
3. DOVER-SHERBORN        98%
4. BELMONT                      93%
5. LEXINGTON                   91%
6. STURGIS                        88%
7. MOUNT GREYLOCK       80%
8. BHS                               67%

Every Boston Latin and MATCH student received the equivalent of “A’s” and “B’s” scores on English MCAS tests with Dover-Sherborn, Belmont, and Lexington were close behind.

Sturgis is only ahead of Mount Greylock and Barnstable High Schools.

Sturgis is a good school, but measured against the MCAS tests administered to all Massachusetts high schools is a better than average school academically according to the MCAS test.

It is important to remember that Sturgis students enter the school in the ninth grade, which means all but one year of each student's education came from the public school programs in Sandwich, Mashpee, Yarmouth, and Barnstable.

The Newsweek poll is a one-man band orchestrated by Jay Mathews according to the information provided by Newsweek;

Public schools are ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement, Intl. Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2007 divided by the number of graduating seniors.
All of the schools on the list have an index of at least 1.000; they are in the top 5 percent of public schools measured this way.
If you have 2007 data showing that your school should be on this list, please contact Mathews at challenge@washpost.com. Note: Subs. Lunch % is the percentage of students receiving federally subsidized meals.
E and E % stands for equity and excellence percentage: the portion of all graduating seniors at a school that had at least one passing grade on one AP or IB test.
For more information on methodology, see our FAQ; please leave your comments on the list in the comments box below.

What this means is that Jay Mathews only ranked schools that gave the three tests, Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, and Cambridge to its students

• without regard to test results
• all that mattered was the number of students who took the tests,
  
• and the number of seniors who graduated.
  

The MCAS test was designed and adopted by the Massachusetts Department of Education to rank education performance of all school districts in the state, and is administered to each tenth grader in the state.

By taking the same MCAS test, academic achievements are better derived through MCAS test scores rather than Newsweek's inane formula.

Barnstable officials spent a ton of money buying the All American City Award.

Why not put Barnstable High School on the map as well?

Next year have all high school students take the Baccalaureate, and Advanced Placement tests.

Don't worry about test scores, because the important thing is the number of students taking the exam.

Email the information to Jay Mathews at Newsweek Magazine, and presto, the school should make the top ten in next year's Magazine.

Unquestionably Boston Latin is the top-ranked high school in Massachusetts, therefore its 115th by Newsweek; 72 places behind Sturgis, and 90 places behind MATCH,  tells me that Jay Mathews' logic is biased bullshit, akin to the All American City Award that only ranks cities, towns, and counties that fill out an application form and submit the required fee.

The Baccalaureate program is a good standard of  intelligence, but there's more in the real world than liberal arts.

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