The Observation Deck

Read this interesting study by Newsweek.

These are the Ohio schools and how they ranked
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18757087/?s ... &Search=OH


I'm suprised to find out that Lakewood isn't anywhere on the list, even though Solon, Bay, Cuyahoga Heights and Westlake made it.

Any thoughts?

Ivor,

As best as I can recall without doing research, in the years just before, during, and especially after WWII, it became a priority to discover the best and brightest students; in order to put them to work in the interests of our country. When the Soviet Union beat us into space in 1957, Americans were stunned.

As we were facing a worldwide ideological struggle with Communism, it was felt that we needed to discover who these young people were, and cultivate their brilliance. RIGHT AWAY!

So standardized testing was developed, and applied nationwide.

These days, I don't need to tell you that testing continues to hold high-priority status. The schools that you cite apparently had enough of the test-passers in their population to make the final cut.

Does that mean Lakewood is sub-standard? Of course not. We simply have a diverse population. There are quite a few students in Special Education, English as Second Language, and economically disadvantaged. Each of these groups may have some students that might reasonably experience difficulty with testing, although to be sure, within those subsets, you will also find brilliant minds.

By the way, even the expression "brilliant minds" can be controversial. Research by Howard Gardner and others support the theory of multiple intelligences, rather than simpler one-number-rated intelligence measurements.

Hey, depending on the way ( or modality) that we are taught, (or tested) we might all be geniuses in something

The state only permits a relative few to be excused from testing for cause. Because Lakewood serves a diverse group of learners, this can drive an aggregate score down.

You can be proud of the fact that Lakewood High serves everyone who enters it's doors. Lakewood High graduates have achieved spectacular accomplishments...even a special needs 1969 graduate like me

...and I suspect, you will too!

Ivor:

The driver on this ranking is “the number of Advanced Placement, Intl. Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2006 divided by the number of graduating seniors.â€Â￾

According to the article, “participation are indicators of a school's effort to get students to excel and prepare for college.â€Â￾

I had two kids who graduated from LHS – 1997 and 2000. One took quite a few AP classes and tests and the other did not take any.

I think LHS is distinctive for many of the qualities in its program. Yet I did not sense that AP participation and social pressure to participate, excel and prepare for college was especially intense.

There’s a slack factor that amasses around the middle from Lakewood’s socio-economic mix of college, vocational ed. and no direction known student body.

One parent warned me in my first year here, twenty three years ago, about the potential for a downward draft on college aspirations that one hazards here where college preppies get splattered by the working class vat and see other ways of living a life. It happened to one of her kids. No tragedy, mind you, just a life without a clear regard for “indicators of a school's effort to get students to excel and prepare for college.â€Â￾

In fact, we moved to the blue collar Midwest from the East Coast, thinking the social pressure, even in New Jersey sandboxes, to excel and prepare for college was insanely high back then. It has only gotten worse. My wife is from Buffalo, N.Y., with blue collar Catholic ethnic roots, who could not hack the NY/NJ privileged character attitude and pressure pit.

For the most part the Ohio list seems to represent communities with an accelerated strive drive, intact families and higher placement on the socio-economic scale.

What surprised me more than no Lakewood was no Rocky River and Avon Lake (unless I missed them in a quick scan of the list).

The questions I have for you, knowing the language barrier you have brilliantly mastered, are:

1. How many AP classes did you take, wish to take or couldn’t take for whatever reason?

2. Did you consider studying on your own and paying to take some AP tests even without the classes?

(I pressed one son to do this – psychology. He was not driven to study the text book, though, he thought so highly of his brainpower but lacked competitive strive drive. I think he got a three.)

3. Did you talk to friends about pulling strings, doing special study, or having to push to get into an AP class?

4. Are there any special self-study groups in AP classes and working together to prepare for these tests?

All questions about you and your perceptions of the general study and strive drive habits at LHS.

Kenneth Warren

1. How many AP classes did you take, wish to take or couldn’t take for whatever reason?

2. Did you consider studying on your own and paying to take some AP tests even without the classes?

(I pressed one son to do this – psychology. He was not driven to study the text book, though, he thought so highly of his brainpower but lacked competitive strive drive. I think he got a three.)

3. Did you talk to friends about pulling strings, doing special study, or having to push to get into an AP class?

4. Are there any special self-study groups in AP classes and working together to prepare for these tests?

All questions about you and your perceptions of the general study and strive drive habits at LHS.

1. I took one AP class and took one AP test
2. I did take an AP test without the AP class
3. I wondered why my friends (who have taken 4 years of AP history, or english, or math, didn't take AP tests because college credit can be given by AP.
4. There are no study classes for the AP test, but the OGTs..but they don't count in this study.


The number of AP tests handed out, especially for government, art history, languages, sciences and english was insane this year. They could barely give me mine because they were stretched so thin with their proctors that the district had available. I think that's a good sign, because that means a lot of people are taking advantage of AP courses.

Once all the schools with new bricks are built, I suspect Lakewood will surge to the top of the rankings.

Ivor:

Thanks for the response.

Maybe the students did not believe they would achieve a grade needed to get the credit at the college of their choice and the test was not worth the expense.

Now let’s look at why the Newsweek rankings are dubious. In “Odd Math for 'Best High Schools' List,â€Â￾ Michael Winerip writes for the NY Times:

“The idea is that schools should be recognized for pushing even average students to take challenging AP courses, the more, the better.

How the students score on the AP tests does not figure into the Newsweek ranking. As Mr. Haas pointed out, "every student at the school can fail every AP test, but as long as lots of students take the tests, you can still be one of Newsweek's best high schools."

A rating system that rewards quantity without measuring quality produces some truly bizarre results….

For example, Foshay Learning Center, a high-poverty school in Los Angeles, is ranked No. 414 on Newsweek's list with a ratio of 1.888 AP tests per graduating senior; Lexington High, in well-to-do suburban Boston, is ranked No. 441, with a ratio of 1.831. For Newsweek, it does not matter that Foshay students failed 83 percent of their AP tests with scores of 1's or 2's; while at Lexington, 91 per cent were 3's, 4's or the top grade of 5 â€â€￾ qualifying those students for college credits.â€Â￾

For more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/educa ... wanted=all

Let’s not forget that Newsweek has a vested interested in puffing the market for AP test-takers. Consider Kaplan and Newsweek are subsidiaries of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO).

Kaplan has AP test prep products. This from the Kaplan website:

Serving Individual Students As Well As Schools and Districts

“Kaplan, the nation's premier education and career services company and Apex Learning, a Seattle-based company dedicated to providing rigorous curriculum for high-achieving students and their teachers, have launched AP test prep, the first online interactive test preparation for Advancement Placement (AP) exams. Beginning March 1 at www.kaptest.com, AP test prep will be available for many of the estimated 700,000 students expected to take the May exams. AP test prep will include review for: U.S. Government & Politics, Statistics, Calculus AB, Macroeconomics and Microeconomics. In addition to online material and study plans, AP test prep will offer regularly-scheduled, live instructor-led audio-chats, where students and teachers interact in an online classroom. A school version of the product will be licensed to schools and districts under the name AP Exam Review.â€Â￾

Source:

http://www.kaplan.com/aboutkaplan/press ... 0_0902.htm

Given the above, I do not believe the absence of LHS from the list should cause us any undue consternation.

Kenneth Warren

Ken,

thanks for the insightful response. I didn't think of it like this,

"every student at the school can fail every AP test, but as long as lots of students take the tests, you can still be one of Newsweek's best high schools."


I'm sure if the rankings were based on graduation rates, attendance, OGT scores LHS would rank, at its lowest, in the top 500. Just my assumption though.

Ken is right about the Newsweek rankings game.

Its all tied into the whole testing/prep class industry that makes millions off of parents and kids terrified they'll be failures if they don't get into a "name" school. Its just the latest status symbol.

The measures they use to rank schools is dubious, at best, as Ken pointed out.

The true test of Lakewood High School's "ranking" is in the opinion of the school formed by college admissions staff. They have an unofficial (and probably closely guarded) ranking of the quality and difficulty of the classes that they use to compare records of students from the various high schools.

That is far more important in how well Lakewood does. and how easily its graduates get into college, than any Newsweek ranking.

You know, I disagree. My daughter took 4 AP classes and 2 AP tests. She did get college credit for the 2 tests she took. But she didn't take the other 2, because she didn't know any students who had taken the tests and did well enough for placement - and some of these students were among the best students at the school.

However our friends with bright children at other schools were taking these tests and doing very well. Maybe they were having study groups I don't know - but if you are going to bother to take these classes - why not have a study group to pass the tests? Like everything else, why try to do something with 1 hand tied behind your back? We have as many bright students as some of these other schools - why aren't we having as much success at passing the AP tests and doing well? It is great to get to college with some extra credits in case you want to do a jr. year abroad, do some internships or perhaps drop a class in which you are having problems. I think we should see what the schools that are having success passing the tests are doing and see if that works better here.

The other option that we have had relatives and friends children do was to take classes whlile in HS in college. This is a great program and you can graduate with 2 years of college credit. The college class counts for both HS and college credit. Lakewood isn't encouraging this, but other districts are. The student gets college credit if they get a C or better and there is no costs other than getting back and forth to the college. I bet with the number of students Lakewood has, we could work a deal with Tri -C to come and teach at Lakewood (they do anyways - I just took a class at Tri-C hosted at LHS.) Then our students could take the classes, get the college credit and help their parents out with maybe being able to shave a year or two off college.

When I took my AP classes my senior and junior years we had study groups with and without the teacher. I had a fabulous teacher (Ms. Myra Lee) for US History who had us come over to her house every night for two weeks before the test. She probably went above and beyond but the results were tremendous. Out of the 19 kids that sat for the exam all of us passed with 4's and 5's. The high school I went to was in an area of San Diego that was very socio-economically mixed, very similar to Lakewood. Many of my classmates came from homes where English was not spoken. A ton of effort has to go into taking these exams. Students do have to go above and beyond typical classwork and study habits, but the rewards are tremendous. Not having had any experience at LHS I would just hope that the AP students are given all that is necessary to see that they pass the exams, whether it be the skills or study groups. I would also hope that the teachers of these classes are the best we have to offer as a ton of information needs to be provided in a relatively short amount of time.

I also want to add that I don't think ranking are all that important but I am curious as to the number of students that are taking AP classes, the percentage sitting for the exams and the scores they are receiving? That would tell me more than a Newsweek rating.

While it was nice to see my alma mater ranked 193rd, I agree with most of the other posts. It's mostly a numbers game. Oakwood can get their numbers up easily based almost entirely on the relatively low number of students.

You can get a quality education just about anywhere, if you're willing to put in the work.