La Plata High School is one of the highest ranking schools in the state, but where does our school stand when compared to every high school in the nation? Students can look at many different websites and newspaper articles, such as The Washington Post or Newsweek, to see how their school ranks. However, these students must also understand that the rankings will vary. For example, The Washington Post has given La Plata a ranking of 729 in the nation, while Newsweek has placed them under the ranking 1353. Why such a difference?
One has to take in mind what makes a school successful. Is it the average GPA of the students or the graduation rate? How about the SAT or ACT scores? Or what about the safety of the general school community? All of these factors come into play in a school ranking. When asked, the current principal of La Plata, Evelyn Arnold, believes that a great school should “involve the school community in working towards constant improvement.”
La Plata High School raises their standards every year so they can continue to grow and strengthen their academic vigor. One of Arnold’s main goals in improving the school is “closing the achievement gap between the highest and lowest performing students in the school.”
Her goal is becoming a reality as La Plata has recently been ranked the only Tier 1 high school in Charles County. Its school staff encourages their students to gain the education they deserve and to attend college with confidence, which is ultimately Mrs. Arnold’s final goal.
So how do newspapers and websites like The Washington Post and Newsweek determine their rankings? The Washington Post takes the amount of Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate/Advanced International Certificate of Education tests given and then divides that by the amount of students that graduated in the same year, creating a ratio out of it. The Post then makes the value of 1000 equal to a 1:1 ratio between the tests and the graduates, and they rank the values from highest to lowest. Note how no test scores are involved in these rankings, showing that The Post focuses solely on the students’ interest and effort in education rather than their actual achievement.
Newsweek does their rankings in a different manner. They take all aspects of a school into account, using graduation rates, acceptance rates into college, test scores (SAT, ACT, AP, etc.) and enrollment into AP courses. This gives a better view of how the school fares overall, judging achievement instead of interest. This is what causes that large gap between rankings, because the schools at the top of the Newsweek rankings have students who carry the weight for the entire school through outstanding scores, while the schools below are still struggling to close the gap between the best and the worst. The Washington Post rankings show how La Plata High School has been successful in making an effort to close that gap, and although it still has not entirely succeeded, it has progressed.
In the words of Mrs. Arnold, “We only have to compete against ourselves.”
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