America's Most Challenging High Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again Blair sucks

I disagree. Look at the methodology. It's dividing # of IB/AP tests by # of students. Blair is not a whole school magnet, and Blair has a very high FARMS rate. This methodology doesn't even look at FARMS rate. Not a Blair parent, btw.

Ok you win, Blair only sucks for most of it's students. It does a great job on a small handful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again Blair sucks

I disagree. Look at the methodology. It's dividing # of IB/AP tests by # of students. Blair is not a whole school magnet, and Blair has a very high FARMS rate. This methodology doesn't even look at FARMS rate. Not a Blair parent, btw.

Ok you win, Blair only sucks for most of it's students. It does a great job on a small handful.

This made me LOL. You're spot on.

[Anonymous]

Sherwood = 10% ESOL

Blair = 15% ESOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again Blair sucks

I disagree. Look at the methodology. It's dividing # of IB/AP tests by # of students. Blair is not a whole school magnet, and Blair has a very high FARMS rate. This methodology doesn't even look at FARMS rate. Not a Blair parent, btw.

Ok you win, Blair only sucks for most of it's students. It does a great job on a small handful.

Are you just being flip or obtuse? Blair--and similar schools in the county--have a large number of immigrant kids. How many kids with 3-5 years of English under their belt do you know in AP classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a stupid list. If you have lots of minorities with average sats the rating go up. But if we have whites and asians with high scores the ratings go down. This should really be called the mentally challenged ratings

It has absolutely nothing to do with SATs. So maybe at least read it first before you call it stupid.

lol... that ^PP obviously lives in a W cluster and can't deal with the fact that more kids in a non W school challenge themselves more than in her cluster. Obviously, she lives and breathes test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again Blair sucks

I disagree. Look at the methodology. It's dividing # of IB/AP tests by # of students. Blair is not a whole school magnet, and Blair has a very high FARMS rate. This methodology doesn't even look at FARMS rate. Not a Blair parent, btw.

Ok you win, Blair only sucks for most of it's students. It does a great job on a small handful.

Are you just being flip or obtuse? Blair--and similar schools in the county--have a large number of immigrant kids. How many kids with 3-5 years of English under their belt do you know in AP classes?

Blair = 15% ESOL

That's not high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again Blair sucks

I disagree. Look at the methodology. It's dividing # of IB/AP tests by # of students. Blair is not a whole school magnet, and Blair has a very high FARMS rate. This methodology doesn't even look at FARMS rate. Not a Blair parent, btw.

Ok you win, Blair only sucks for most of it's students. It does a great job on a small handful.

Except these handful of kids will do fine no matter where you put them. It really has nothing to do with Blair itself. Let's say you move the magnet program/kids out and move to somewhere in Mississippi, they will still do fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sherwood = 10% ESOL

Blair = 15% ESOL

And RM = 11% ESOL

The ranking does appear to be correlated with ESOL% to some degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sherwood = 10% ESOL

Blair = 15% ESOL

And RM = 11% ESOL

The ranking does appear to be correlated with ESOL% to some degree.

Then doesn't that make it rather meaningless?

I mean, unless you are raising an ESOL kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again Blair sucks

I disagree. Look at the methodology. It's dividing # of IB/AP tests by # of students. Blair is not a whole school magnet, and Blair has a very high FARMS rate. This methodology doesn't even look at FARMS rate. Not a Blair parent, btw.

Ok you win, Blair only sucks for most of it's students. It does a great job on a small handful.

Except these handful of kids will do fine no matter where you put them. It really has nothing to do with Blair itself. Let's say you move the magnet program/kids out and move to somewhere in Mississippi, they will still do fine.

Precisely.

And if you send your bright but unmotivated student to the best school on the planet, the "smart" doesn't magically rub off on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sherwood = 10% ESOL

Blair = 15% ESOL

Blair's FARM rate is also more than double Sherwood's-- 36% to 17%. It's great that Sherwood's kids are challenging themselves, but to try to draw some meaningful comparison to Blair is silly. It's not apples to apples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sherwood = 10% ESOL

Blair = 15% ESOL

Blair's FARM rate is also more than double Sherwood's-- 36% to 17%. It's great that Sherwood's kids are challenging themselves, but to try to draw some meaningful comparison to Blair is silly. It's not apples to apples.

So then it's not the ESOL rate but rather the farms rate that skews this (ridiculously useless) report? Gotcha.

And that supports everything commonsense dictates: that bright kids do well anywhere, and most low income kids struggle academically. Shall we file this "report" under No Duh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sherwood = 10% ESOL

Blair = 15% ESOL

Blair's FARM rate is also more than double Sherwood's-- 36% to 17%. It's great that Sherwood's kids are challenging themselves, but to try to draw some meaningful comparison to Blair is silly. It's not apples to apples.

FTR, I really wasn't comparing Blair to Sherwood.

As you said, it's not apples to apples. Which begs the question as to how this report can be useful on any level when it's not apples to apples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a stupid list. If you have lots of minorities with average sats the rating go up. But if we have whites and asians with high scores the ratings go down. This should really be called the mentally challenged ratings

It has absolutely nothing to do with SATs. So maybe at least read it first before you call it stupid.

lol... that ^PP obviously lives in a W cluster and can't deal with the fact that more kids in a non W school challenge themselves more than in her cluster. Obviously, she lives and breathes test scores.

NP, but I think she just meant "stats" instead of "sats." And test scores are a lot of what determines lists and rankings like this. Calm down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sherwood = 10% ESOL

Blair = 15% ESOL

Blair's FARM rate is also more than double Sherwood's-- 36% to 17%. It's great that Sherwood's kids are challenging themselves, but to try to draw some meaningful comparison to Blair is silly. It's not apples to apples.

So then it's not the ESOL rate but rather the farms rate that skews this (ridiculously useless) report? Gotcha.

And that supports everything commonsense dictates: that bright kids do well anywhere, and most low income kids struggle academically. Shall we file this "report" under No Duh?

No, because for the last time, it's not about how well kids perform, it's about the level of academic rigor a school provides and how challenging the environment is, measured by advanced level class participation. It's a data point. It's only when you put that data in front of insecure, competitive folks on a board like this that the meaning becomes totally misconstrued