Westchester Magazine is a must read this month. Pick up a copy at your grocery store or local news stand.
Do not expect to see the New Rochelle school board or administration touting these recent reports cards from U.S. News & World Report, Westchester magazine and the State of New York. Westchester magazine has New Rochelle ranked below Yonkers!
The highlight is the cover story which ranked Westchester high schools. Unable to manipulate the results, New Rochelle High School was accurately ranked in the lower third. The article discussed the U.S. News & World Report which are ADJUSTED FOR INCOME AND DEMOGRAPHICS. Our so-called “leadership” in New Rochelle loves to play a shell game when talking about the District’s relative performance – if you ask about test scores and compare the District to Scarsdale they cry “foul” because New Rochelle is more “diverse” (code for a much higher percentage of lower-income black and latino students). But, when it comes times to talk about spending the District DOES compare itself to Scarsdale to point out how low the per-pupil cost is in New Rochelle. Recently the school board voted to approve a recommendation from the Superintendent Richard Organisciak to refuse to participate in an annual Newsweek survey of high schools because they “did not want to be define by one number”. They never refused Newsweek before but last year New Rochelle dropped significantly so suddenly they find the survey unfair (part of the USN&WR survey uses the same methodology as Newsweek).
In its December 2008 feature entitled “America’s Best High Schools,” U.S. News & World Report ranked Yonkers High School the best in Westchester County, beating out the usual suspects. Of 21,069 public high schools in 48 states ranked, Yonkers High came out in the “Top 100” in the nation, in the 37th spot. Chappaqua’s Horace Greeley High School? No. 46. Rye Brook’s Blind Brook? No. 87. Scarsdale High School? No. 92. Bronxville? Honorable mention.
New York State Report Card for City School of New Rochelle
Welcome to Westchester: The Highest-Taxed County in the Nation
Westchester County Spends Most Per Capita
