Newsweek's new ranking of 1300 public high schools is out. The school district we're leaving, Bexley, Ohio, came in 404, but the one we're moving to, Auburn, AL, came in 369 so that's good I guess. The rankings are based solely on the percentage of graduating seniors taking AP or IB exams.

Needless to say, not everyone is happy with the simple Newsweek methodology. US News has a ranking based on a more complicated formula created by SchoolMatters.

The advantage of the Newsweek methodology is that AP and IB exams are the same nationwide while just about all other data are not comparable across states. The US News rankings plow ahead despite the comparability issues looking at state test scores primarily and placing greater emphasis on the relative performance of disadvantaged and minority students.*

Anyway in the US News report, Bexley High made the cut with a "silver medal" but, Auburn High was left out in the cold, so that's not so good. I suspect the reason is that Bexley has very few of disadvantaged and minority students (just 5% qualify for federally subsidized lunches), and the ones it has do relatively well. Auburn, in contrast has a more diverse student body with more disadvantaged and minority students (25% qualify for subsidized lunches), many of whom one may presume don't do that well on state tests.

From my point of view, as a parent of a non-disadvantaged, non-minority student, I suspect Auburn will serve our needs quite well with lots of AP opportunities and participation opportunities in the IB program.

As you might guess, unlike many commenters on these rankings, I think it's better to measure badly than not to measure at all. Bad measurements at least start the conversation and overtime can lead to calls for better measurements.

My own alma mater was on neither list.

*I must note that SchoolMatters' own Compare Schools utility won't compare schools from different states "because most states use a unique test to measure student performance."