The Best High Schools

Challenging Kids By Encouraging Them To Take Tough High-School Courses Produces Students Who Can Succeed Later In College

NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Mar 13, 2000

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  • Posted By: motherofmultiples @ 07/25/2008 12:47:04 AM

    I too live in Jacksonville, FL and our children attend Paxon School for Advanced Studies. It is ranked #8 on the Newsweek list and is an outstanding school. I agree, however, that other than Stanton and Paxon, the high school education in Jax, FL is a disgrace. The drop-out rate in this city is over 50%. What irony to have two nationally ranked high schools and such a dismal graduation rate all in the same city. Florida needs to get their educational act together.

  • Posted By: jwjdesi92 @ 05/23/2008 10:17:15 PM

    I am from Jacksonville, too and i can promise you that not all our high schools are bad. Stanton, for example, is a very difficult school, and soars above the state standards. We now require even freshmen to take an AP course (AP world) that is traditionally only taken by seniors.

  • Posted By: dianne9h @ 05/20/2008 6:12:17 PM

    I agree that the methodology used is very flawed! I am a teacher in Jacksonville, FL and have also taught in in Orlando and Osceola counties as well as the state of NY. I can say, with experience that the education in NY is much more difficult, advanced and well rounded than it is here in Fl. My neighborhood HS fared very well on this list however I wouold not send my dog to public school in the state of FL. Their education leaves much to be desired. I hope people will do further research when deciding where to move to to gain a good education for their children. You won't find it here in FL!

  • Posted By: anita972 @ 05/20/2008 9:09:47 AM

    why is there not a list for catholic or private high schools?

  • Posted By: Alan in Virginia @ 05/19/2008 9:21:04 PM

    Apparently a number of school superintendents disagree with the methodology employed by Newsweek and Mr. Matthews. Excerpt below:

    The signers of this letter are school superintendents representing a cross section of districts, including some of the finest public schools in the nation. Many of our high schools have received top rankings in your annual edition of ???Americas Best High Schools,??? as well as in numerous other publications. Others might never appear in such rankings, despite great achievements, because of challenges beyond the reach of your superficial approach to measuring quality.

    Although some of our schools may seem to be the fortunate beneficiaries of your articles, we all believe that all schools, communities -- and your readers -- are poorly served by Newsweek's persistent efforts to use a single statistic, the number of students who sit for A.P. or I.B. exams, to rank schools.

    The inventor of this flawed methodology, Jay Mathews, has insisted that it is meaningful because A.P. or I.B. participation is the sole available nation-wide measure of whether students take a rigorous program of study. He is right that there are few consistent measures of school quality, state-to-state, but that does not justify inappropriate use of the data that is available.

    Students and school communities deserve better than simplistic and misleading school rankings, and that is why the signers of this letter will not respond to your request for our A.P.. or I.B. test data. We respectfully insist that you omit our schools from your rankings, no matter how well we score, even if you already have our data, or obtain it in some other way.

    Sincerely,

    School Districts - Superintendents:

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