Ranking by using AP scores

Tampa Tribune
Tuesday May 30, 2006
A15 Opinion
Other Views

No Sure Yardstick,
But No Harm In Ranking

By Manny Suarez

Newsweek Top 100

Many people in education are discussing Newsweek’s ranking of public high schools across the nation. Newsweek is using Washington Post’s Jay Mathews’ rating system (you can check it out at www.washingtonpost.com Education section).

“Public schools are ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement and/or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2005 divided by the number of graduating seniors.”

Congratulations to Hillsborough HS IB, St Pete High IB, Plant, King IB and Palm Harbor IB for making the top 100 list and to the entire State of Florida for having 20 schools in the top 100.

As an AP Calculus and AP Statistics teacher myself, I have always felt that students will rise to the teachers’ and curriculum’s expectations.

There is only one problem. Students do not have to pass the test in order to be counted. In fact they can get zero correct answers and still help their school get a high ranking.

So Jay Mathews added another scale called “Equity and Excellence”.

“The equity and excellence percentage is the portion of all graduating seniors at a school that had at least one passing grade on one AP or IB test in high school.”

Being involved in education for over 30 years, I know there is no simple way to measure a good school, there are too many variables. Jay Mathews and Newsweek are just trying to encourage schools to give kids a chance to learn challenging material. If this artificial ranking accomplishes that, then I am all for it.

Manny Suarez


(PS: my article is right next to NY Times Thomas Freidman article talking about education in America. And below an article by Jeb Bush on Florida producing better readers….Good company)