Top High Schools

M.D. Holloway · 05-17-2015, 05:32 AM

https://homes.yahoo.com/news/u-s--news--best-high-schools--2015-230841932.html

Looks like a Dallas school was on top. Big deal. While the list includes schools focused on the exceptional students, I would rather see schools that would take average or kids with below average skills or learning disabilities and do great things.

Its easy to teach a kid that's got chops, try doing it with a kid that has learning issues or demographic challenges.

My Daughter is gifted and has never gotten anything below a 95 in anything ever. She is in 6th grade and is in pre-AP class and breezes through effortlessly. If she wasn't kept busy with piano, violin, soccer and church she would be bored out of her head and prolly get into to trouble. She will most likely excel in her HS and be in the top 1%. That's a given. And yes on her present course she will most likely get into any school she desires. She is that kid. Her HS is great with AP kids. They thrive.

Now my Son. While he is charming and has swagger he has never been a great student. He struggles. He has dyslexia. The HS is a joke for kids like him. I am sure he will be fine when he gets out - he has a survivor instinct and a gift for gab. Its just sad that I don't think his potential was tapped yet, IMO the school has failed him. His courses are a joke. My Daughter can breeze through his geometry homework without struggle. Granted she is gifted but still.

IROC · IROC's Garage

My kids' high school was listed at #5 in the state of Tennessee...

onewhippedpuppy · 05-17-2015, 07:10 AM

What a stupid survey. Their evaluation methods guaranteed that private or magnet type schools would fill the top ten. That's not a reflection of the school's quality or lack thereof, it's a reflection of the school being filled with the area's beat and brightest students.

Evans, Marv · 05-17-2015, 07:16 AM

You are right in saying well resourced schools chocked full of upper class, intelligent kids of successful and educated and supportive parents shouldn't be those rated. It's easy to gather raw stats on these kinds of institutions. It's another to analyze the performance and success of schools in areas of lower tier social and economic status to gauge success on truly elevating kids who live in less than optimal circumstances. Maybe you are referring to a recent article on the best high schools in each state. It was interesting to see the best school in one of the north central states with really sparse population ranted at the 2,200+ level of all in the U.S.

jcommin · jcommin's Garage

M.D.,

I read this article too. I started going thru the list and I saw the no. 1 school in IL. This school is for the truly gifted. It is a special selective enrollment school. My thinking was: "what is the purpose of this article?" Was is to make average people feel bad, marvel at truly gifted kids, make me feel jealous and /or encourage the local schools to bring their game up. I don't get it.

Mu oldest son, who is now 27, had behavioral issues. He was put into a therapeutic school from the 7th grade until his junior year in HS. He was main streamed into the public HS, graduated and I cried during the commencement. I did not cry because of happiness, I cried from relief that he finished HS. At that time, I didn't know what he would do. He tried college but it wasn't for him. He is very entrepreneurial and took advantage of his gift. Today he runs a 8 million company. I am very proud of him. I actually do some business with him.

I am so tired of gifted programs and gifted kids when in fact the majority are average and more effort needs to be placed with kids that have needs. I felt like a pariah during the time my son was in a therapeutic school because all I heard in my community was how special everyone was. I attended a freshman HS orientation - a question was asked: " how many gifted kids are in the school?" The answer:" about 8%". I said to myself: they all must be in my neighborhood! To put thing in perspective, my son graduated from Glenbrook North located in Northbrook, IL. Northbrook is an upper income burb on the north shore. There were 648 in my son's graduating class and 52 of them were National Honor society members, exactly 8%.

This is one of the biggest cons I bought into as a parent.

I interview allot of potential engineering hires. All these kids have great GPAs. All of that tells me is that they study, do homework and are good test takers. I always ask: " Have your ever failed?. How did you recover from failure? What did you learn from it? How well do you work with others?" Stuff like this gets me a better picture of who they are. They other thing I learned: Passion beats skill all day! Show me someone who has the fire inside, they will get everything else.

You sound like a great parent!

DanielDudley · 05-17-2015, 11:34 AM

I pay for one of the top schools in NY, and I have no kids.

A good investment, IMO.

onewhippedpuppy · 05-17-2015, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanielDudley

I pay for one of the top schools in NY, and I have no kids.

A good investment, IMO.

I pay for our public schools, and pay to send my kids to a far superior Catholic school. Not sure I'm happy with that investment.

ckelly78z · 05-18-2015, 03:26 AM

The testing methods are questionable to me, my sophmore son says they practice and drill the contents of aptitude tests for a week before each test in order for the school to look good in it's results. These results can mean alot of different things....real estate values, tax base, bragging rights.

LWJ · 05-18-2015, 03:35 AM

Worthless. I just reviewed the full article and looked at schools that i am very familiar with. I see no correlation between usnwr rankings and what I personally know about some local schools.

sammyg2 · 05-18-2015, 05:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

What a stupid survey. Their evaluation methods guaranteed that private or magnet type schools would fill the top ten. That's not a reflection of the school's quality or lack thereof, it's a reflection of the school being filled with the area's beat and brightest students.

And we all know the top students would rather apply to sheety schools!!!!

There's a couple of reasons the top students compete for magnet schools and there are reasons parents pay big $$$ for private schools.
1) they are typically better schools.
Better teachers, better administrators, better curriculum, better facilities.

2) lack of RIFF RAFF.
Teachers have to teach down to the lowest common denominator, and at magnet and private schools that isn't as far down as at public schools.

IOW, they don't let the dyslexic kid with sheety grades drag down the top performers, they don't let the poor students STEAL time and education from the good students.
They don't let the kids who barely habla waste the good student's time by having to repeat everything two or three times.

That's why it works. Put the good students together in good schools where they can excel.
Put the poor students in poor schools because the majority of them don't really give a crap any way.

Ya wanna go to a good school? Earn it.
Ya wanna get good grades? Put in the effort, work hard like the good students do, and earn it.

That's too much to ask?

The world needs ditch diggers to Danny.

I sat through high school getting nearly straight A's without donig any homework, and the hardest part was staying awake whikle the dumb kids stole my education.
They wasted my time, wasted potential, wasted my energy.
That was not fair, they shuold not have been in those classes.

Note that in 7th through 10th grade I was in The MGM program (mentally gifted minors).
basically accellerated advanced classes similar to honors or AP classes today.

but in 11th grade they killed that program because the STOOPID parents of the STOOPID students complained that we were getting preferential treatment and a better education than their darling little morons.

So I was put back in the regular clasees where the student's main concern was where the next bong hit was coming from.

But i'm not bitter .......

tadd · 05-18-2015, 09:17 AM

My dad taught Jr high wood shop for 33 years and kid sister is going on 15. They both swear the reason public education is 'broken' is for three reasons...

1. Phases/AP/magnate. Put everybody together. Smart kids help the slow kids. Slow kids get the help they need, and the faster kids truly know the material. If you can teach it correctly, you have to know it. Segregation by smarts is a 'new thing'.

2. Private schools are selective. They don't have to take everybody like the public schools. This really irritates them since public HAS to take the societal garbage... which can chew up 40% of a schools time and funds. There is no other place for them to go till they are 18.

3. Too much test based teaching and the total death of vocational ed. There is very little open ended problem solving available. Oh, and PE has been eviscerated.

I run into folks that had my dad as a teacher. They always comment that the modules class they had was the best thing that they ever did. You built a small section of an actual home. It was a 'L', about 6x2'. Subfloor, frame, window, drywall, electrical outlet/light/switch, plumbing all the way to shingles on the roof. The kids did all the drafting (This was long enough ago that no CAD on a TRS80!) too.

Dad got the lumber materials donated every year and the rest was recycled.

You just don't find programs like that anymore.