Decatur High School Ranks 8th Among Georgia High Schools
Decatur Metro | June 28, 2012 | 2:55 pmThe Washington Post’s just-released national “High School Challenge” has ranked Decatur High School 8th in the state of Georgia and 198th in the country based on an index score calculated on “the number of college-level tests given at a school in 2011 divided by the number of graduates that year.”
Decatur is up a spot amongst Georgia high school’s since last year, when it ranked 9th in the state, and is up 35 spots nationally.
h/t: CSD
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Decatur High School is #8 in Georgia in “the number of college-level tests given at a school in 2011 divided by the number of graduates that year.” Woo hoo! DHS! DHS!! DHS!!!
Sorry, but the proliferation of these sorts of pseudo-scientific quantitative rankings of schools (with the execrable USN&WR in the lead) is just a grab for eyeballs and ad revenue.
+1
Preach it!
Agreed. I really don’t care much about how many kids take AP courses. I only care about how many get a 3, 4 or 5 on the AP tests. Any school can shove a bunch of kids into an AP class or two to up their ranking…… I want to know which schools have teachers who can teach effectively at that level.
While the Washington Post metric is certainly incomplete and something more nuanced would paint a more lustrous picture, DHS’s continued improvement in this area should bring at least delight, if not elation. Many of us remember a time in the not-too-distant past when the most challenging content was offered to a too-narrow band of kids. How nice that doors are being opened wider and wider, ensuring that more and more students are offered the opportunity to pursue the most demanding content the high school has to offer.
There is also an article in the AJC that Decatur (along with Fayette and Forsyth counties) had higher CRCT scores than the rest of Metro Atlanta.
Regarding CRCT scores, I’m glad CSD ranked well compared to some other Metro districts, but there’s still some room for improvement in math. While the percent not meeting expectations decreased for 3rd and 4th grades, it either stayed the same or increased for grades 5-8. For CRCT, I mostly look at % failed because the CRCT is pretty worthless as a measure of high performance. Kids with low MAP scores because of real learning deficits can often score high on the CRCT just by being clever test takers. It’s a measure of test coping, not academic, skills for many students. But not meeting at all shows a profound problem, a total lack of ability to perform on a pretty low level test. I’ve only reviewed the math CRCT scores so far because math has always been CSD’s Achille’s heel. I’m wondering if maybe the K-3s finally moved away from Everyday Math and that’s why grades 3-4 improved but the higher grades did not.
Re DHS rank in article above, I think the title is a misnomer. It really should be something like “DHS ranks 8th among GA high schools for college level tests taken”. That’s a pretty narrow measure that only tells you so much. It doesn’t even seem to take into account how the students did on those tests, just that they took them. I don’t love the denominator either because it leaves out students who drop out or never pass graduation requirements, although, luckily, DHS’s high graduation rate makes that a moot point. It’s always nice to see DHS rank well but this measure is limited in what it says about high school performance.
On a tour of Clairemont Elementary a few months ago, the principal was explaining how they’re going to have a new focus on math. Things like, showcasing someone who has done something great with math each Friday at their assembly. New math projects and just generally incorporating math much more into everyone’s consciousness. I was pretty happy about that. She also emphasized that this new math focus will not be at the expense of reading – just an addition.
That’s great. FYI that a few years ago, enough kids were struggling in math at Clairemont by both CRCT and MAP measures, that the School Leadership Team worked with the school to put on a free “Saturday Math Academy” for kids needing extra help. The Saturday Academy did not use Everyday Math materials but materials from another curriculum that another school district had used to improve scores on the Math CRCT. As a volunteer, I found those materials quite good compared to the Everyday Math stuff my kids brought home. Many wondered if Everyday Math was working well enough for struggling kids. Don’t know if the Academy has lasted or if a change from Everyday Math ever happened….
For years, I listened dutifully to talk about program curricula but found it boring. Math was math and reading was reading, just teach it. With more perspective, I realize that the choice of curriculum does influence learning and performance and parents should very much care. It’s hard because us non-educators do not know a lot about curricula and the topic isn’t as sexy or prestigious as our K-12 Spanish program, Links (gifted program), or AP high school classes. But the curriculum matters a lot–different types of kids respond differently to different curricula, not all curricula have great science behind them, and change comes with painful transition periods. IMHO, Everyday Math does not reach all students well and our reading program needs more emphasis on phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency. Better curricula would save some students and help even high achievers do better. At the older grade levels, recognition should be given to the fact that some students need structured instruction and others need more of an exploratory approach; one or the other is not adequate. The recent State high school math curriculum debacle is an example of good intentions but poor implementation during a period of staff and budget limitations. Some kids lost months and months, if not years, worth of learning in math while the approach flipped one way then the other. Parents have to make sure that curriculum choices, no matter how neat sounding and exciting, are focussed on the classroom, work for all students, and are implemented well.
Westminster, Fayette County? Looks like pretty good company to me.
Congrats to the hard working teachers and staff at DHS. This kind of recognition doesn’t happen because of luck. A great deal of work, from administrators, staff, and teachers, makes this possible. A special shout out to Ms. Riley in the library and Ms. Foy in the office who help make DHS a special institution. These kind of hard working individuals are rarely mentioned but their dedication helps make DHS a great place for students, teachers and staff. Keep up the great work!
Well, look: I think very highly of CSD schools. I’m quite happy to thank the people whose great work I know about–there are quite a few. But this particular method of ranking high schools is next to worthless, for the reasons spelled out by AHID above, so I’d rather not take this ranking as an opportunity for congratulating the awesome folks at CSD.
+1… Show me how many of our kids pass the AP compared to other districts, and if that number is also excellent…. I will start congratulating our DHS teachers.. many of whom are top notch.
Agreed.
Certainly not bad news!