With regard to ELL and Cat B special education services, the US News ranking method is terrible in that for some reason it penalizes the schools that host programs to help those kids with unique needs.

PP, meant to include that VA Dept of Ed has Woodson at 98%.

When you go to the Virginia Department of Education website the graduation rates are different. I don’t know where US News grabs their data from.

The ELL issue is real in schools with a high immigrant population. And it’s been surprising to me how many students enroll in HS as new immigrants whose formal schooling was so interrupted that they can’t realistically catch up or have no knowledge of English to even bridge that gap. The state dept of education allows you to do highly targeted reports looking as all cohorts individually. Once you break out the ESOL community, the graduation rates are high 90s across the board.

I also don’t know how Cat B students are factored in to the graduation rates, but many of the Title I or near Title I schools have large Cat B programs. Within those programs there is no expectation of an on time graduation. Many of those students will receive services until they age out.

Is it administration? Wasn’t there an interim principal? Who is it now?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with Woodson’s new ranking? Dropped to 16th in VA.

I know it’s a small portion of the ratings, but the 93% graduation rate stands out to me. I would have expected something like 98%.

How many of those are military kids transferring out?

I don't think that's it because West Springfield, Lake Braddock and Robinson typically have more military kids and they're all 96-98%. Maybe Woodson's is an error? It seems like a disconnect compared to all of its other stats.

Anonymous wrote:Provide your link.

NP here. This is the link to the high schools in Va that are the best of the best according to USNews. Most all the FCPS high schools did well. We should be happy.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/virginia/rankings

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with Woodson’s new ranking? Dropped to 16th in VA.

I know it’s a small portion of the ratings, but the 93% graduation rate stands out to me. I would have expected something like 98%.

How many of those are military kids transferring out?

I have no idea how this works, but some other graduation rates were pretty crazy like Justice at 77%, Herndon at 83%, Annandale at 85%, Centreville at 90%, Fairfax at 91%. How does that work when 1 in 6 kids aren't graduating. Do the kids know? Are they just absent or transfers? These rates seem low including Woodson.

Those rates are due to the ELL kids. A few of them are indeed real drop outs, but most of them are older ELL kids that learn they can transfer to an FCPS GED program, adult HS, or one of FCPS's alternative programs and get done with school much faster and on a part-time basis so that they can also enter the workforce sooner. That's means they get disenrolled from their base school and enrolled into another program.

Some principals are against referring their students to those other programs specifically because it hurts their school's graduation rate calculation. Even though most of the time ELL kids are much better served by alternate programs. If Justice is referring 20% of their students out to get GEDs, then that's a good thing even if 77% graduation rate looks bad. Just another reason why it's important to look at context behind statistics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with Woodson’s new ranking? Dropped to 16th in VA.

I know it’s a small portion of the ratings, but the 93% graduation rate stands out to me. I would have expected something like 98%.

How many of those are military kids transferring out?

I have no idea how this works, but some other graduation rates were pretty crazy like Justice at 77%, Herndon at 83%, Annandale at 85%, Centreville at 90%, Fairfax at 91%. How does that work when 1 in 6 kids aren't graduating. Do the kids know? Are they just absent or transfers? These rates seem low including Woodson.

Provide your link.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with Woodson’s new ranking? Dropped to 16th in VA.

I know it’s a small portion of the ratings, but the 93% graduation rate stands out to me. I would have expected something like 98%.

How many of those are military kids transferring out?

Anonymous wrote:The latest College Board report indicates that Woodson had the fourth highest pass rate on AP exams among the county’s 17 AP high schools behind TJ, Langley, and McLean. That’s a different statistic but it’s possible that US News just used incorrect data. They aren’t infallible.

Isn't the US News data a few years old when they do the rankings? Over in the AAP forum people are claiming that re: TJ's fall in the rankings.

The latest College Board report indicates that Woodson had the fourth highest pass rate on AP exams among the county’s 17 AP high schools behind TJ, Langley, and McLean. That’s a different statistic but it’s possible that US News just used incorrect data. They aren’t infallible.

Only 54% passed at least one AP exam? That's quite low for a school that supposedly prides itself on being a destination for high-achievers. For comparison, Langley and McLean are at 70%, Oakton and Madison upper 60s%.

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with Woodson’s new ranking? Dropped to 16th in VA.

I know it’s a small portion of the ratings, but the 93% graduation rate stands out to me. I would have expected something like 98%.

What’s wrong with Woodson’s new ranking? Dropped to 16th in VA.