Lies, damn lies, and

Serra high was just named 119th out of all the high schools in the US in a ranking of best to worst by Newsweek. Sounds good, right. There are a lot of high schools in the US.

How did they create the ranking?

For each school, they took the ratio of the number of AP exams taken to the number of graduating seniors. Then they ranked the schools based on that number.

There are only a million problems with this measure.

Chief among the problems is that it isn't a measure of student achievement. It might mean more if it was the ratio of tests passed to tests given. Or, better yet, what percentage of graduating seniors took AP exams in how many subject areas and HOW MANY PASSED.

To just count the number of tests taken is more a measure of the parents economic status. Can the parents afford $200 per test just to inflate their child's grade one letter!

Serra also gets good marks for how many seniors go to college (2 year and 4 year combined). However, nobody is tracking the kids five years out. I want to know the percentage that make it through college. How many took the placement exams and were placed in the remedial English and math classes? The colleges track the students in great detail but nobody seems interested in correlating that data by high school or even high school district. (Or if they are, that information isn't being made public.)

The principal at Serra seems to know how to make her school look good even while it is a pit.