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Post by momto4 on May 19, 2008 13:20:57 GMT -5
www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/957787,na19_waubonsieweb_s1.article New: Survey: Waubonsie one of nation's top schools May 19, 2008 Sun staff Waubonsie Valley High School has made a list of Newsweek’s top 1,300 high schools in the nation. The Indian Prairie School District 204 school is No. 1,079 on the 2008 list, up from 1,252 last year. Neuqua Valley High School, which ranked No. 607 on the 2007 list, does not appear on this year’s list. Neither high school in Naperville School District 203 has made the Newsweek list in recent years, and 2008 is no exception. According to Newsweek, public schools were ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Matthews: 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 are in the top 5 percent of public schools measured this way. The searchable database of rankings may be viewed online at www.newsweek.com/id/39380. Read Tuesday’s Naperville Sun and Beacon News for additional details. (edited Sun's spelling of Waubonsie)
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Post by arc on May 19, 2008 14:28:02 GMT -5
Congratulations to Waubonsie! Well done.
Unfortunately, our hometown newspaper seems to have gotten it wrong here.... Naperville North was indeed on the list last year:
From the Newsweek article: Refine ResultsSearch by school, city or state. GO TO: 1+ Showing 1 to 2 of 2 Schools in Naperville, IL from 2007« PREV | NEXT » PAST YEARS RANK SCHOOL LOCATION STATE INDEX SUBS. LUNCH E&E 607 Neuqua Valley Naperville Ill. 1.763 1.6 37.5 1101 Naperville North Naperville Ill. 1.222 6.4 30.3 « PREV | NEXT » GO TO: 1+ *Gave just IB tests. **Gave both IB and AP tests. AP and IB participation are indicators of a school's effort to get students to excel and prepare for college.
I'm not personally sure that the number of AP tests taken is the way to measure a high school's effectiveness, but it certainly is nice to hear good news about our schools for a change!
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Post by gatormom on May 19, 2008 14:28:02 GMT -5
I think it is wonderful that Waubonsie made this list. Don't understand how Neuqua did not, both schools provide the same excellent education, offer the same courses and opportunities.
I guess this only goes to show you, sometimes this type of data is not a good measure of a school.
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Post by gatormom on May 19, 2008 17:16:26 GMT -5
I'm not personally sure that the number of AP tests taken is the way to measure a high school's effectiveness, but it certainly is nice to hear good news about our schools for a change! I agree with you. I am not fond of the ACT being used to measure a high school's effectiveness but that is how we have determined the academic achievement gap. So we have one test that says, NV is better than WV and in this case, another relatively obscure method of determining that WV is better than NV. Of course, both schools are equal in their academics.
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Arwen
Master Member
Posts: 933
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Post by Arwen on May 19, 2008 21:40:44 GMT -5
I read about this guy's metric last year. He's got a pretty interesting take on why the number of AP courses taken is a measure of a good school. IIRC, his theory was that by offering and encouraging students to take AP courses, the high schools are better preparing kids for college by challenging them. The more students that take the test (even if they don't pass), the higher percentage of the student body that has been prepared in this manner.
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Post by gatormom on May 20, 2008 6:52:13 GMT -5
Waubonsie ranked a top school by Newsweek Naperville Sun May 20, 2008 By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com Waubonsie Valley High School has made Newsweek's list of the top 1,300 high schools in the nation. The Indian Prairie School District 204 school is No. 1,079 on the 2008 list, up from 1,252 last year. "I hope it provides witness to all of the great things that we've been trying to do collectively for a really long time," Waubonsie Principal Jim Schmid said. "As long as we keep making forward progress, I think it really speaks highly to everything that we are trying to do together. ON THE WEB The searchable database of Newsweek's top high school rankings may be viewed at www.newsweek.com/id/39380. Neuqua Valley High School, which ranked No. 607 on the 2007 list, does not appear on this year's list. Neither high school in Naperville School District 203 has made the Newsweek list in recent years, and 2008 is no exception. According to Newsweek, public schools were ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Matthews: 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 are in the top 5 percent of public schools measured this way. Schmid said Waubonsie's standing on the list is due to efforts to increase participation in advanced placement programs over the past few years. "I think it really does prepare them for the rigor of the college level," Schmid said of AP classes. "That's the way we try to sell it. Experience an AP setting because it will only benefit you in the long run. Even if you're just taking one (AP class). All of a sudden one builds to two, and then you've suddenly built some real confidence, and confidence catapults you into a whole other arena." Schmid said he wouldn't be surprised to see Waubonsie climb even higher in next year's rankings, as students have registered for 1,600 AP courses next year, up 300 from this year.
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Post by asmodeus on May 20, 2008 8:58:09 GMT -5
Let's see...Neuqua, NN, NC, and even New Trier did not make the list of America's "Top 1300" schools. That alone should make one question the validity of the list.
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Post by warriorpride on May 20, 2008 9:00:46 GMT -5
Let's see...Neuqua, NN, NC, and even New Trier did not make the list of America's "Top 1300" schools. That alone should make one question the validity of the list. Sure, this ranking method had been questioned, as have other ranking methods. Your point?
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Post by gatordog on May 20, 2008 9:05:16 GMT -5
... All of the schools on the list are in t he top 5 percent of public schools measured this way. I dont know the ins and the outs of the measurement technique. Of course there is room for debate of any ranking scheme or list. But to me, this is a clear and highly publicized way of showing something that my experiences and instincts already told me is the case: WV is among the best 5% of public HS nationwide. And yes, I would put NV, NN, and NC in this category also.
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Post by asmodeus on May 20, 2008 9:05:21 GMT -5
Let's see...Neuqua, NN, NC, and even New Trier did not make the list of America's "Top 1300" schools. That alone should make one question the validity of the list. Sure, this ranking method had been questioned, as have other ranking methods. Your point? The point is that the list is bogus.
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Post by 3woodgal on May 20, 2008 9:12:16 GMT -5
Let's see...Neuqua, NN, NC, and even New Trier did not make the list of America's "Top 1300" schools. That alone should make one question the validity of the list. Sure, this ranking method had been questioned, as have other ranking methods. Your point? This was good news to read about WV. I made a call to a couple people I know who work in admissions at Pepperdine (CA) and also Villanova (PA). Apparently the list that colleges use to rank/weight schools when reviewing transcripts in calculating the admissions total (when selecting those that are accepted) is very different from the Newsweek list. NV, NN, and NC are still significantly higher than WV. However WV does have the ability to move up once the rankings are passed along to universities for next year applicants. My contacts both said that they did not have any changes as of yet and may not if change is not that significant overall.
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Post by gatormom on May 20, 2008 9:14:19 GMT -5
Sure, this ranking method had been questioned, as have other ranking methods. Your point? The point is that the list is bogus. Really? Because the holy trinity of Naperville schools didn't make it? I do not mean to slam those schools, as I said before, Neuqua and Waubonsie are equal in academic offerings and opportunities. The list has its own way of ranking schools. Waubonsie did well, good for Waubonsie, it would be nice if you found something nice to say. Using the ACT scores from the junior class is also a bogus way of ranking schools but we do it all the time, you know that pesky academic achievement gap. The difference between WV and NV is several dozen students or less scoring poorly. Should that be a problem? It is to some.
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Post by warriorpride on May 20, 2008 9:23:58 GMT -5
Sure, this ranking method had been questioned, as have other ranking methods. Your point? The point is that the list is bogus. Nice - so, it's not even remotely possible that, based on a certain criteria, Waubonsie is doing better than other schools in IL?
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Arwen
Master Member
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Post by Arwen on May 20, 2008 9:33:01 GMT -5
I really would encourage you all to read about this research and metric. The guy does acknowledge that not everyone will agree with it. One thing he doesn't like about using test scores like ACT/SAT as the metric is that high scores on those test correlate very highly to the affluency of the parent rather than the quality of the school. He feels that his metric gets a more meaningful measure of the school itself rather than the affluency of the parents. In other words, a child from an upper middle class family will likely score well on ACT/SAT tests regardless of whether the school is top notch or mediocre. He is trying to measure the actions of the school itself. I don't know if I agree with him, but was a very interesting way to look at school quality.
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Post by 3woodgal on May 20, 2008 9:33:54 GMT -5
The point is that the list is bogus. Really? Because the holy trinity of Naperville schools didn't make it? I do not mean to slam those schools, as I said before, Neuqua and Waubonsie are equal in academic offerings and opportunities. The list has its own way of ranking schools. Waubonsie did well, good for Waubonsie, it would be nice if you found something nice to say. Using the ACT scores from the junior class is also a bogus way of ranking schools but we do it all the time, you know that pesky academic achievement gap. The difference between WV and NV is several dozen students or less scoring poorly. Should that be a problem? It is to some. As I said before it is nice to see something positive about WV in print in regards to rankings. I am not a WV fan but c',mon Asmodeus, it is good to see things could be changing. As for NV and WV being equal, this is not true when it comes to college admissions and the weight of each school when calculating composite score in determining who gets admitted.
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