Best High Schools:
1. Walls 2. Banneker 3. BASIS 4. DCI 5. McKinley Tech 6. Latin 7. Ellington 8. Wilson (JR) 9. EL Haynes 10. CHEC https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/district-of-columbia/rankings Middle Schools: 1. BASIS 2. DC Prep-Edgewood 3. Oyster-Adams 4. Deal 5. DC Prep- Benning 6. Hardy 7. DCI 8. KIPP DC- Key 9. Whittier 10.Friendship PCS https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia |
Surprised not to see Latin in top 10 middle schools.
To be honest I haven't really studied PARCC scores, but I'm guessing that is the biggest factor in the rankings for middle school. And high school probably weights graduation rates heavily. Is that correct? |
Whittier does not have a middle school!! |
Latin is #14, ITDS #15 |
Yes, for middle school, PARCC is very important. If you follow the link, you can follow another link to each individual schools ratings in all the areas (reading and math profieciency, and reading and math performance). Latin just didn't do better than the schools above it. |
US News also seems to have some kind of calculation based on demographic expectations -- like a school can underperform relative to demographics, or overperform, and that counts towards this ranking. |
Latin and ITS suffered on this marker for middle school -- both "below expectations" for math and reaidng performance, while the DC Preps and KIPPs are "above expectations" (are are BASIS and Oyster, Deal and Hardy are "meets expectations.") |
Whittier was gradually transitioning its middle school grades to Wells. So they must have had a good year relative to demographics, with a really small number of students. It just goes to show how poorly vetted this information is, strange results can appear because it's just a big computer model with very little human insight or quality control. |
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Latin middle school is #14? |
Wow! DCI high school, for being only a few years old has shot up the charts. |
BASIS DC started in 2012. DCI started in 2014. |
And yet DCI is nipping at their heels as being a younger school! Basis ranked very low in the state assessment performance rank at #31 in the state, which ranks "how aggregated scores on state assessments compare with U.S. News' expectations given the proportions of students who are Black, Hispanic and from low-income households". DCI wasn't as good as it should be at #13, but much better than Basis, with a significantly higher percentage of minority students enrolled. (Yes, I am DCI parent and am proud of how well DCI has ranked in Star ratings, etc. at bringing up the performance of disadvantaged students.) |
Yes It's only a couple of years older, but it is very exclusionary: Almost no ESL and hardly any SPED
Basis: 663 STUDENTS 19% Black/African-American 6.3% Asian 9.7% Hispanic / Latino <1% Native American / Alaska Native <1% Native Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander 51% White non-Hispanic 13.9% Multiracial Meanwhile; Over 15% ESL and 15% SPED DCI: 1590 STUDENTS 29.2% Black/African-American 2.6% Asian 40.1% Hispanic / Latino <1% Native American / Alaska Native <1% Native Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander 19.4% White non-Hispanic 8.6% Multiracial |
These rankings are not totally useless. They could be helpful if you don't know anything about the schools. But they are so crude that if you're generally familiar with the schools, the rankings don't add any real information. |