US News - Best High Schools

[Capt Caveman]

Main Index

Interesting numbers. I didn't expect CA to rank so high.

My home state, MA was ranked #1 overall with Boston Latin ranked #27 and Belmont High ranked #100. The High School I attended was ranked a Silver.

Best High Schools: State by State Statistics

 

[First]

But the gays have ruined the schools there! :laugh:

 

[First]

Though CA having great HS's isn't a surprise to most who live here; it's just that there are a lot of bad ones too, which give the rest of the state a bad name.

 

[ProfJohn]

The system seems questionable.

Plus hard to compare schools in the the northeast or cali coast with schools in rural areas. The needs of the students are so different as are the ways in which the students get their education.

Also, the kids on the coasts are competing for college positions that are much more scarce and harder to come by than those in the mountain and central states. Thus the kids on the coasts are taking the AP classes and SATs and trying to look better than each other while the kids in Iowa are just going to school like most of us older people did in the days before everyone had to take AP classes.

 

[babylon5]

If there is a Worst High School list, CA is probably near the top too. I agree, more bad high schools in CA than good ones.

 

[JS80]

That list loses credibility with me...my HS should be top 100.

 

[Aimster]

I agree with #1.

You need to take a test to get into that school. Average SAT was like 1400 when it was on a 1600 scale.

It takes the best students from Fairfax County and puts them all in one school.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
The system seems questionable.

Plus hard to compare schools in the the northeast or cali coast with schools in rural areas. The needs of the students are so different as are the ways in which the students get their education.

Also, the kids on the coasts are competing for college positions that are much more scarce and harder to come by than those in the mountain and central states. Thus the kids on the coasts are taking the AP classes and SATs and trying to look better than each other while the kids in Iowa are just going to school like most of us older people did in the days before everyone had to take AP classes.

Yep, the methodology is BS.

HappyHippieHooey

based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.
Related News

We analyzed 21,069 public high schools in 48 states using data from the 2006-2007 school year. This is the total number of public high schools in each state that had grade-12 enrollment and sufficient data to analyze primarily for the 2006-2007 school year. A three-step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state's high school test. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations.

For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these disadvantaged student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average.

So it's not really anything concrete - it's massaged results based on ASSumptions and excuses for poor performers.

 

[First]

^ rofl. Gotta love these fringe wingnut rejects.

 

[Double Trouble]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
The system seems questionable.

Plus hard to compare schools in the the northeast or cali coast with schools in rural areas. The needs of the students are so different as are the ways in which the students get their education.

Also, the kids on the coasts are competing for college positions that are much more scarce and harder to come by than those in the mountain and central states. Thus the kids on the coasts are taking the AP classes and SATs and trying to look better than each other while the kids in Iowa are just going to school like most of us older people did in the days before everyone had to take AP classes.

Yep, the methodology is BS.

HappyHippieHooey

based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.
Related News

We analyzed 21,069 public high schools in 48 states using data from the 2006-2007 school year. This is the total number of public high schools in each state that had grade-12 enrollment and sufficient data to analyze primarily for the 2006-2007 school year. A three-step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state's high school test. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations.

For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these disadvantaged student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average.

So it's not really anything concrete - it's massaged results based on ASSumptions and excuses for poor performers.

Yep, whenever they start adjusting student scores or results for being "disadvantaged" or "advantaged", you know it's some politically correct BS study devoid of any real significance. Based on this nonsense, the top schools might perform horribly, but because they might have lots of "disadvantaged" students they are rated higher. :laugh:

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Evan
^ rofl. Gotta love these fringe wingnut rejects.

:laugh: Yep, nothing from Iowa on that 100 list :laugh:

 

[Double Trouble]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Evan
^ rofl. Gotta love these fringe wingnut rejects.

:laugh: Yep, nothing from Iowa on that 100 list :laugh:

Yes, but we can all rest assured that just about every student in Iowa not riding the short bus (and a few that do!) have a better grasp on reality than you do

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
The system seems questionable.

Plus hard to compare schools in the the northeast or cali coast with schools in rural areas. The needs of the students are so different as are the ways in which the students get their education.

Also, the kids on the coasts are competing for college positions that are much more scarce and harder to come by than those in the mountain and central states. Thus the kids on the coasts are taking the AP classes and SATs and trying to look better than each other while the kids in Iowa are just going to school like most of us older people did in the days before everyone had to take AP classes.

Yep, the methodology is BS.

HappyHippieHooey

based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.
Related News

We analyzed 21,069 public high schools in 48 states using data from the 2006-2007 school year. This is the total number of public high schools in each state that had grade-12 enrollment and sufficient data to analyze primarily for the 2006-2007 school year. A three-step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state's high school test. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations.

For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these disadvantaged student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average.

So it's not really anything concrete - it's massaged results based on ASSumptions and excuses for poor performers.

They're not making excuses for poor performing students, they're just not holding the school responsible for those students' poor performance. They're essentially saying that it's not the fault of bad schools that poor people do badly in school. That leaves the students, the parents, and genetics at fault. It's a decidedly non-liberal feel-good position to take - blaming people for their own failures.

It's also a normal practice to control for certain variables in a study. The goal is to show which schools do the most with what they're given. If the student's socio-economic status affects what the school has to start with, then you have to factor that into what they end up with.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
The system seems questionable.

Plus hard to compare schools in the the northeast or cali coast with schools in rural areas. The needs of the students are so different as are the ways in which the students get their education.

Also, the kids on the coasts are competing for college positions that are much more scarce and harder to come by than those in the mountain and central states. Thus the kids on the coasts are taking the AP classes and SATs and trying to look better than each other while the kids in Iowa are just going to school like most of us older people did in the days before everyone had to take AP classes.

Yep, the methodology is BS.

HappyHippieHooey

based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.
Related News

We analyzed 21,069 public high schools in 48 states using data from the 2006-2007 school year. This is the total number of public high schools in each state that had grade-12 enrollment and sufficient data to analyze primarily for the 2006-2007 school year. A three-step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state's high school test. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations.

For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these disadvantaged student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average.

So it's not really anything concrete - it's massaged results based on ASSumptions and excuses for poor performers.

They're not making excuses for poor performing students, they're just not holding the school responsible for those students' poor performance. They're essentially saying that it's not the fault of bad schools that poor people do badly in school. That leaves the students, the parents, and genetics at fault. It's a decidedly non-liberal feel-good position to take - blaming people for their own failures.

It's also a normal practice to control for certain variables in a study. The goal is to show which schools do the most with what they're given. If the student's socio-economic status affects what the school has to start with, then you have to factor that into what they end up with.

Wow... someone sure has bought into the happy hippie hooey...

Let me ask you(and the others who buy into this crap) is the "best" is relative to what you have to work with - is it really the "best"?
What these sorts of feel-good studies do is allow those who start lower be "winners" even if their end results are still poor. It's laughable to think that that going from an D to a B could be considered a "best" when others may have been an A- to an A-. Another way to put it is - if you have a basically non-minority school and your students are well above statewide averages - you could be beat by a school that has a decent sized minority population that barely beats the state average.

<- is sick of the "losers are winners" BS that people have bought into...

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Wow... someone sure has bought into the happy hippie hooey...

Let me ask you(and the others who buy into this crap) is the "best" is relative to what you have to work with - is it really the "best"?
What these sorts of feel-good studies do is allow those who start lower be "winners" even if their end results are still poor. It's laughable to think that that going from an D to a B could be considered a "best" when others may have been an A- to an A-. Another way to put it is - if you have a basically non-minority school and your students are well above statewide averages - you could be beat by a school that has a decent sized minority population that barely beats the state average.

<- is sick of the "losers are winners" BS that people have bought into...

Well you are welcome to think that way, you would just be ignoring a massive amount of research that strongly indicates socioeconomic factors relate to student performance.

I mean in a race the way you determine the best driver is by the person who finishes the quarter mile race the fastest. It doesn't matter if one person is in a Ferrari and the other is driving a Geo, and the Geo only loses by a tiny margin. You hire the driver of the Ferrari for your racing team, because he finished first and is therefore the best.

To do otherwise would just be buying into that hippie 'losers are winners' BS, and in Amurrikah we don't tolerate that shit.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Wow... someone sure has bought into the happy hippie hooey...

Let me ask you(and the others who buy into this crap) is the "best" is relative to what you have to work with - is it really the "best"?
What these sorts of feel-good studies do is allow those who start lower be "winners" even if their end results are still poor. It's laughable to think that that going from an D to a B could be considered a "best" when others may have been an A- to an A-. Another way to put it is - if you have a basically non-minority school and your students are well above statewide averages - you could be beat by a school that has a decent sized minority population that barely beats the state average.

<- is sick of the "losers are winners" BS that people have bought into...

Well you are welcome to think that way, you would just be ignoring a massive amount of research that strongly indicates socioeconomic factors relate to student performance.

I mean in a race the way you determine the best driver is by the person who finishes the quarter mile race the fastest. It doesn't matter if one person is in a Ferrari and the other is driving a Geo, and the Geo only loses by a tiny margin. You hire the driver of the Ferrari for your racing team, because he finished first and is therefore the best.

To do otherwise would just be buying into that hippie 'losers are winners' BS, and in Amurrikah we don't tolerate that shit.

Exactly the BS I'm talking about. It's about lowered expectations and rewarding it. You(and your "studies") EXPECT different results from different races(which this study used - not purely economic) wheras I and others would like everyone measured using the same yard stick. Using a shorter yard stick for certain people doesn't support the idea of equality or standards. In this world - REAL results matter so it's BS to use different measuring sticks for different people. Either we are equal...or we're not. I support the idea that we are equal - do you?

 

[Oceandevi]

My county is not included...

 

[miketheidiot]

my highschool constantly has the top act scores in the states, offers the broadest selection of ap classes in the state, has athletic, music, and art programs that consistently rank nationally, and we don't even get a bronze.


instead, a bunch of Podunk schools on the res or in countries with <1000 people and destitute poverty dominate the list.

EDIT: maybe if they added in the suicide rate/casualty rate to the index it would set this right.

EDIT MK2: from north dakota.

 

[BrownTown]

In terms of the top100 its pretty silly really, it is only looking at the number of AP tests kids take, which means absolutely jack shit for how smart they are. You can have a monkey sit down and take 10 AP tests and get to the top of those lists. Also, they only have public schools which is only really telling half the story since alot of places no elf respecting person would send their kids to public school. At least where I live in Tennessee you just don't see kids coming out of the public schools and being successful. Its kind of sad really when they post the Valedictorians each year for the public schools and they are all going to the big public colleges or community college meanwhile, a third of the kids at he the private schools are getting into top 25 colleges and essentially the bottom 30% are going to the same places as the top tier public schools kids.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
In terms of the top100 its pretty silly really, it is only looking at the number of AP tests kids take, which means absolutely jack shit for how smart they are. You can have a monkey sit down and take 10 AP tests and get to the top of those lists. Also, they only have public schools which is only really telling half the story since alot of places no elf respecting person would send their kids to public school. At least where I live in Tennessee you just don't see kids coming out of the public schools and being successful. Its kind of sad really when they post the Valedictorians each year for the public schools and they are all going to the big public colleges or community college meanwhile, a third of the kids at he the private schools are getting into top 25 colleges and essentially the bottom 30% are going to the same places as the top tier public schools kids.

you realize that alot of the top 25 colleges are 'big public colleges' right?

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
The system seems questionable.

Plus hard to compare schools in the the northeast or cali coast with schools in rural areas. The needs of the students are so different as are the ways in which the students get their education.

Also, the kids on the coasts are competing for college positions that are much more scarce and harder to come by than those in the mountain and central states. Thus the kids on the coasts are taking the AP classes and SATs and trying to look better than each other while the kids in Iowa are just going to school like most of us older people did in the days before everyone had to take AP classes.

Yep, the methodology is BS.

HappyHippieHooey

based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.
Related News

We analyzed 21,069 public high schools in 48 states using data from the 2006-2007 school year. This is the total number of public high schools in each state that had grade-12 enrollment and sufficient data to analyze primarily for the 2006-2007 school year. A three-step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state's high school test. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations.

For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these disadvantaged student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average.

So it's not really anything concrete - it's massaged results based on ASSumptions and excuses for poor performers.

They're not making excuses for poor performing students, they're just not holding the school responsible for those students' poor performance. They're essentially saying that it's not the fault of bad schools that poor people do badly in school. That leaves the students, the parents, and genetics at fault. It's a decidedly non-liberal feel-good position to take - blaming people for their own failures.

It's also a normal practice to control for certain variables in a study. The goal is to show which schools do the most with what they're given. If the student's socio-economic status affects what the school has to start with, then you have to factor that into what they end up with.

Wow... someone sure has bought into the happy hippie hooey...

Let me ask you(and the others who buy into this crap) is the "best" is relative to what you have to work with - is it really the "best"?
What these sorts of feel-good studies do is allow those who start lower be "winners" even if their end results are still poor. It's laughable to think that that going from an D to a B could be considered a "best" when others may have been an A- to an A-. Another way to put it is - if you have a basically non-minority school and your students are well above statewide averages - you could be beat by a school that has a decent sized minority population that barely beats the state average.

<- is sick of the "losers are winners" BS that people have bought into...

No hippie here. You don't understand that they're ranking the performance of the SCHOOLS, not the students. Any school can take the cream of the crop and let them excel, but a good school can take everyone and make them exceed expectations.

Edit: I don't know why I'm bothering to respond when you obviously didn't read past the first sentence of my post.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Wow... someone sure has bought into the happy hippie hooey...

Let me ask you(and the others who buy into this crap) is the "best" is relative to what you have to work with - is it really the "best"?
What these sorts of feel-good studies do is allow those who start lower be "winners" even if their end results are still poor. It's laughable to think that that going from an D to a B could be considered a "best" when others may have been an A- to an A-. Another way to put it is - if you have a basically non-minority school and your students are well above statewide averages - you could be beat by a school that has a decent sized minority population that barely beats the state average.

<- is sick of the "losers are winners" BS that people have bought into...

Well you are welcome to think that way, you would just be ignoring a massive amount of research that strongly indicates socioeconomic factors relate to student performance.

I mean in a race the way you determine the best driver is by the person who finishes the quarter mile race the fastest. It doesn't matter if one person is in a Ferrari and the other is driving a Geo, and the Geo only loses by a tiny margin. You hire the driver of the Ferrari for your racing team, because he finished first and is therefore the best.

To do otherwise would just be buying into that hippie 'losers are winners' BS, and in Amurrikah we don't tolerate that shit.

Exactly the BS I'm talking about. It's about lowered expectations and rewarding it. You(and your "studies") EXPECT different results from different races(which this study used - not purely economic) wheras I and others would like everyone measured using the same yard stick. Using a shorter yard stick for certain people doesn't support the idea of equality or standards. In this world - REAL results matter so it's BS to use different measuring sticks for different people. Either we are equal...or we're not. I support the idea that we are equal - do you?

You may think this about equality, but the fact is that we AREN'T all exactly the same. We don't all come from the same backgrounds and we don't all have the same economic and educational opportunities. And while in some sense you're right that the end results matter, when it comes to judging an individual or a school, I think the starting point matters to. We can have it both ways, because both ways are right. Forget for a minute that we're talking about DIFFERENT ending points and assume we're discussing two different students who both earned stellar grades in high school, got into a top college and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. Only student 'A' came from a wealthy family, never had to work during school and grew up with a background that prided intelligence and academic achievement. Student 'B', on the other hand, came from a poor area where education was looked down on, where he didn't have any real support system, and had to work during high school and college. According to your "everyone is equal" philosophy, they achieved the same thing, so they are exactly equal. But I'd say student B is far more impressive, because the end point is so far away from the starting point. It's not just what goal you reach, it's how far you go to reach it.

 

[palehorse]

My High School alma mater is now the #1 High School in the entire country!! (We were only #3 when I went there) Mannn, I'm such a geek!

w00t!

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
The system seems questionable.

Plus hard to compare schools in the the northeast or cali coast with schools in rural areas. The needs of the students are so different as are the ways in which the students get their education.

Also, the kids on the coasts are competing for college positions that are much more scarce and harder to come by than those in the mountain and central states. Thus the kids on the coasts are taking the AP classes and SATs and trying to look better than each other while the kids in Iowa are just going to school like most of us older people did in the days before everyone had to take AP classes.

Yep, the methodology is BS.

HappyHippieHooey

based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.
Related News

We analyzed 21,069 public high schools in 48 states using data from the 2006-2007 school year. This is the total number of public high schools in each state that had grade-12 enrollment and sufficient data to analyze primarily for the 2006-2007 school year. A three-step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state's high school test. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations.

For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these disadvantaged student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average.

So it's not really anything concrete - it's massaged results based on ASSumptions and excuses for poor performers.

They're not making excuses for poor performing students, they're just not holding the school responsible for those students' poor performance. They're essentially saying that it's not the fault of bad schools that poor people do badly in school. That leaves the students, the parents, and genetics at fault. It's a decidedly non-liberal feel-good position to take - blaming people for their own failures.

It's also a normal practice to control for certain variables in a study. The goal is to show which schools do the most with what they're given. If the student's socio-economic status affects what the school has to start with, then you have to factor that into what they end up with.

Wow... someone sure has bought into the happy hippie hooey...

Let me ask you(and the others who buy into this crap) is the "best" is relative to what you have to work with - is it really the "best"?
What these sorts of feel-good studies do is allow those who start lower be "winners" even if their end results are still poor. It's laughable to think that that going from an D to a B could be considered a "best" when others may have been an A- to an A-. Another way to put it is - if you have a basically non-minority school and your students are well above statewide averages - you could be beat by a school that has a decent sized minority population that barely beats the state average.

<- is sick of the "losers are winners" BS that people have bought into...

No hippie here. You don't understand that they're ranking the performance of the SCHOOLS, not the students. Any school can take the cream of the crop and let them excel, but a good school can take everyone and make them exceed expectations.

Edit: I don't know why I'm bothering to respond when you obviously didn't read past the first sentence of my post.

:roll: I've read everything you've posted and it's the same old happy hippie hooey that has ruined our public school system.

A school is judged by the products it puts out - not some subjective and I dare say racist measurement.
If a school puts out those who excel and are the top of the state - THOSE are the "best" schools.
Just because a school has more "minorities" and can produce good(not necessarily the top) students does not mean they are the "best". They might be good but it smacks of racism to weigh their results higher due to the color of the student's skin.

I want to know the top performing schools - the ones that have the highest achievement and actual results - those are the "best" schools. Unless you are part of the crowd that thinks certain people are more/less equal than others...

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Wow... someone sure has bought into the happy hippie hooey...

Let me ask you(and the others who buy into this crap) is the "best" is relative to what you have to work with - is it really the "best"?
What these sorts of feel-good studies do is allow those who start lower be "winners" even if their end results are still poor. It's laughable to think that that going from an D to a B could be considered a "best" when others may have been an A- to an A-. Another way to put it is - if you have a basically non-minority school and your students are well above statewide averages - you could be beat by a school that has a decent sized minority population that barely beats the state average.

<- is sick of the "losers are winners" BS that people have bought into...

Well you are welcome to think that way, you would just be ignoring a massive amount of research that strongly indicates socioeconomic factors relate to student performance.

I mean in a race the way you determine the best driver is by the person who finishes the quarter mile race the fastest. It doesn't matter if one person is in a Ferrari and the other is driving a Geo, and the Geo only loses by a tiny margin. You hire the driver of the Ferrari for your racing team, because he finished first and is therefore the best.

To do otherwise would just be buying into that hippie 'losers are winners' BS, and in Amurrikah we don't tolerate that shit.

Exactly the BS I'm talking about. It's about lowered expectations and rewarding it. You(and your "studies") EXPECT different results from different races(which this study used - not purely economic) wheras I and others would like everyone measured using the same yard stick. Using a shorter yard stick for certain people doesn't support the idea of equality or standards. In this world - REAL results matter so it's BS to use different measuring sticks for different people. Either we are equal...or we're not. I support the idea that we are equal - do you?

You may think this about equality, but the fact is that we AREN'T all exactly the same. We don't all come from the same backgrounds and we don't all have the same economic and educational opportunities. And while in some sense you're right that the end results matter, when it comes to judging an individual or a school, I think the starting point matters to. We can have it both ways, because both ways are right. Forget for a minute that we're talking about DIFFERENT ending points and assume we're discussing two different students who both earned stellar grades in high school, got into a top college and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. Only student 'A' came from a wealthy family, never had to work during school and grew up with a background that prided intelligence and academic achievement. Student 'B', on the other hand, came from a poor area where education was looked down on, where he didn't have any real support system, and had to work during high school and college. According to your "everyone is equal" philosophy, they achieved the same thing, so they are exactly equal. But I'd say student B is far more impressive, because the end point is so far away from the starting point. It's not just what goal you reach, it's how far you go to reach it.

Example B of a happy hippie hooey apologist.


Yes, it certainly can be harder for those who have less to achieve due to many factors but as I pointed out - why did the "methodology" point out "black, Hispanic"? Is there something about being a minority that makes them less than or more than others? This "study" seems to think so... I don't. I think that the color of one's skin or minority status matters exactly ZERO as I believe in equality.
Yes, due to one's life circumstances they may have to "reach" further but that isn't about the color of one's skin and it certainly doesn't make them "best" just because they had to "reach" further if as in your example they both had results of 4.0 GPA. They are equally "best" in a 4.0 but it seems in your world and in the world of this "study" - the minority would be "best" strictly due to their race. This is no different than the racist practice of AA and it sickens those of us who believe in equality.