posted by Joe Polk at 11:28 PM /
The U.S. News & World Report has released a list of what it considers the best public high schools in America, putting some local high schools into silver and bronze categories.
Locally, the list includes the following high schools:
Silver -- Allegheny County: Fox Chapel Area, Hampton, Mt. Lebanon, North Allegheny, Pine-Richland, Pittsburgh Allderdice, Upper St. Clair.
Link: www.postgazette.com/pg/08343/933713-100.stm
Locally, the list includes the following high schools:
Silver -- Allegheny County: Fox Chapel Area, Hampton, Mt. Lebanon, North Allegheny, Pine-Richland, Pittsburgh Allderdice, Upper St. Clair.
Link: www.postgazette.com/pg/08343/933713-100.stm
Labels: high school, us news and world report
4 Comments:
I posted a comment Friday, pointing out our high school is the second highest silver in the state. Students will be flocking to Mt. Lebanon so they can be ready for college.
We can be proud our school ranks third in the state at 45.1 college readiness, behind Julia R. Masterman 69.9 and Conestoga 45.9 according to U.S. News & World Report Best High Schools 2009. Upper St. Clair's index is 25.0. Even with the old facility in disrepair, our high school students continue to perform competitively.
Several months ago I looked at the relationship between achievement and money spent per student. Achievement being narrowly and inadequately defined as SAT performance. For $ spent I pulled Current Expenditures per ADM, from the PA Department of Education. Current expenditures include instructional, support services and non-instructional expenses, and exclude capital and financing expenses. The most recent spend data available was for the 2005-2006 school year. So I used 2005 SAT scores.
MTL ranked # 8 in SAT performance that year and the middle of the pack, in current spend for high performing school districts; right about the median.
In my rudimentary analysis, money spent by the top 50% of public high schools across the Commonwealth (ranked by total SAT) did not translate into higher achievement. R-squared, a statistical measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables was about 20%.
This indicates other variables contribute far more to achievement than simply expenditures. Some have said it is small closets and one-car garages, but I question that theory, as well.
The Post-Gazette reported from US Census data this morning, that “Mt. Lebanon has the highest percentage of college graduates … 61.2 percent of adults 25 and older have bachelor’s degrees or higher …” Now we might be getting somewhere.
Add in talented faculty, dedicated leadership, progressive curriculums, well-rounded educational experiences, etc … and you start to see what makes the difference.
And what about that crummy old building from which +/- 15,000 of us have graduated in the last 35 years?
P.S. Thanks from me and my kids.
@Bill Matthews:
That's an interesting analysis. Any chance you could put it online (or at least the data) to encourage further analysis?
--Tom Moertel
For those interested in more quantitative data on PA schools, the PA Department of Education has a heap of facts and figures available. Below are some links to get you started:
PA Department of Education (PDE) Home Page
http://www.pde.state.pa.us/
PDE Pre K-12 Page
http://www.pde.state.pa.us/k12/site/default.asp
2005-2006 Expenditures and Expenditures per ADM
http://tinyurl.com/PA-PDE-Expenditures-2005-2006
2006-2007 Expenditures and Expenditures per ADM
http://tinyurl.com/PA-PDE-Expenditures-2006-2007
2005 SAT Scores
http://tinyurl.com/PA-PDE-SAT-2005
2006 SAT Scores
http://tinyurl.com/PA-PDE-SAT-2006
2007 SAT Scores
http://tinyurl.com/PA-PDE-SAT-2007
2008 SAT Scores
http://tinyurl.com/PA-PDE-SAT-2008
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