is the fifteenth best high school in Connecticut and the 526th best in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report's 2012 Best High Schools ranking.
The annual list ranks schools based on student performance on standardized tests as well as student participation in Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs.
Since 2009 the list has been expanded from 1,800 to 22,000 high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia (Nebraska did not report enough data to be included in this year's rankings), U.S. News reports.
U.S. News says it partnered with the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research in developing the ranking methodology.
In addition U.S. News awarded more than 4,850 gold, silver, and bronze medals to the top-performing schools. won silver for its high level of student performance.
According to the report, the AP exam participation rate at is 48 percent, helping it reach 44.6 on the College Readiness Index. With 1,287 students and 93 teachers, the high school maintains a 14:1 student to teacher ratio.
For more, check out U.S. News and World Report's 2012 Best High Schools ranking.
Speaking of sidewalks, why the heck did they tear up the sidewalks in front of the library? I guess it's easy to waste money when it's not your own. Those sidewalks were perfectly fine. And why the heck are we rebuilding people's retaining walls? They should not have built them on property.
From Wikipedia: "White supremacy is [...] used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social, political, historical and/or industrial dominance by whites. White supremacy [...] is rooted in ethnocentrism and a desire for hegemony and power." Basically any system of ranking schools is going to be promoting ethnic hegemony (read white supremacy) by definition, since in order to be ranked well you need to be doing the same thing as everyone else. If you look at the ranking methodology, you'll see that they are trying to coerce schools into focusing on math, english, and the AP curriculum. Now none of these things are inherently bad, but it should be trivial to see why a school that's primarily focused on boosting student achievement (on paper) in these specific areas might not be the best thing for all students and communities, and yet that is precisely what they're being encouraged to do. (And if you're willing to do the research, it's pretty easy to see why the AP curriculum is actually pretty terrible in general.)
The median range of the % of students taking AP exams for the top 15(14) public schools in CT, excluding magnet and charter schools (1) is 49-50%. This range includes Hall, Darien, Wilton, Simsbury and Farmington. There are 4 schools with 51% or more students passing the AP exams. They are Conard, Ridgefield, Weston and Staples. There are 5 schools with 47% or fewer students passing the AP exams. They are Old Saybrook, Lyme, Avon, Pomperaug and, finally, New Canaan. Maybe you can make an argument that Darien scores about the same as New Canaan using % of students passing AP exams as your decision tool, but you can’t say that New Canaan and Ridgefield, Weston or Staples are in the same league. Maybe the decision tool stinks. Who knows? Let the comments begin. May the best rhetorician win. Come out of your cohort and keep your wits up at all times.
The median range of the % of students taking AP exams for the top 15(14) public schools in CT, excluding magnet and charter schools (1) is 49-50%. This range includes Hall, Darien, Wilton, Simsbury and Farmington. There are 4 schools with 51% or more students passing the AP exams. They are Conard, Ridgefield, Weston and Staples. There are 5 schools with 47% or fewer students passing the AP exams. They are Old Saybrook, Lyme, Avon, Pomperaug and, finally, New Canaan. Maybe you can make an argument that Darien scores about the same as New Canaan using % of students passing AP exams as your decision tool, but you can’t say that New Canaan and Ridgefield, Weston or Staples are in the same league. Maybe the decision tool stinks. Who knows? Let the comments begin. May the best rhetorician win. Come out of your cohort and keep your wits up at all times.
Also, the reason our students do well on SAT's is not because of the teachers, it's because of the tutors we hire. So many students have tutors at the HS, and believe it or not, the teachers tutor on the side! It's a scam!
I suppose too 'progressive' for the taste of NC. I reckon I will not see any of the graduates operating as leaders and shakers in the future. Sad