School rankings out today
Public schools are a common political topic in this area. In particular, we often hear Republicans argue that public schools be defunded, either by voucher programs or by redirecting sales taxes. In all of this debate, it’s worth remembering one key point: the greater Rochester area has a disproportionate number of the country’s best high schools. In today’s Newsweek/Washington Post rankings, five Rochester area schools finished in the top 200 of all public schools nationwide. The greater Rochester area is home to slightly less than a million people, which comes to about 1/300 of the country’s entire population, so a typical area of its size would expect to place about one school in the top 200. So having five is a lot.
The methodology for the Newsweek/Post rankings is simple — it’s just AP exams taken per student. Whether or not this is the very best measure of school quality is of course open for debate, but the Rochester area tends to place a large number of schools in the top few hundred regardless of the methodology used.
Just something to think about…and something that doesn’t come up enough when people discuss area public schools.
The five schools listed are hardly representative of public schools in general, even within Monroe County. If I was asked to name the best schools in the area off the top of my head; Wilson Magnet, Greece Odyssey, Pittsford Mendon/Pittsford Sutherland, and Brighton would all be on that very short list.
I just have to put in a plug for Honeoye Falls-Lima. Music program extrordinaire.
What’s your point? That public schools are bad in general or that the ones here are bad….or neither.
i think they are representative of public schools in general because even in your short list you mention 4 different districts that also span east/west side and urban/suburban. i think overall our schools are second to few, if any. i can’t think of a district that is universally looked down upon. even the ‘bad’ districts have strong points.
I heard on NPR tonight that many of the schools selected in the study also had admissions criteria which means they had to be accepted into the school, instead of being the child of a school district taxpayer. Hence more power for Monroe County in NYS.
All of the Monroe County schools listed had admissions criteria, too.