U.S. News & World Report recently evaluated nearly 22,000 public high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Schools were awarded gold, silver, or bronze medals based on state proficiency standards, how well they prepare students for college, and other factors. New Rochelle was not ranked.
Do not expect any comment by New Rochelle school officials, who have always placed PR value over actual results. Like any other ranking, survey or report where New Rochelle does not do well, the USN&WR report will be ignored or dismissed. Two years ago, when the district was flagged for abysmally low graduation rates, the district tried to bury that by banning public comment on the topic at board meetings until July (the report came out in March) when school was closed and few people would be paying attention. Last year, the district failed to make AYP in one sub-group at one school, this year the district failed to make AYP in 7 sub-groups at four schools. There has been no statement from the district and no board discussion since the report was released in March.
We’ve seen this many times before, most notably with regards to the annual Newsweek rankings.
In March 2009, the New Rochelle Board of Education, at the recommendation of Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak, actually voted to stop cooperating with Newsweek magazine’s national high school rankings. The board agreed with Organisciak that the Newsweek rankings are simultaneously “too subjective” and “data driven”. Ironic considering that all such rankings are based on data that is selectively weighted and applied by the list creator. What data to consider and how to weight the data is subjective, by definition.
Yet this same group had no problem in 2009 with the far more subjective yet data-driven list published by BusinessWeek which used standardized test scores as a key driver of their analysis and which listed New Rochelle as one of the Best Places to Raise Your Kids – 2009. They had no problem with BusinessWeek until the following year when BusinessWeek dropped New Rochelle from its Best Places to Raise Your Kids – 2010 at which point BusinessWeek was never mentioned again.
The fact that the Newsweek list is well-respected and has been in use for many years and the BusinessWeek list is relatively new and not respected matters little to them. Despite this, the district and PTA routinely promote voting for the school budget by citing the Newsweek ranking even though New Rochelle has not been ranked by Newsweek for years and is officially shunned by the district.
At the time, we explained that the criteria set up by BusinessWeek to produce their ranking in 2009 limited the places eligible for their list to just two municipalities out of the entire State of New York (New Rochelle and White Plains). This is because the criteria were weighted to place great emphasis on population size, minimum levels of racial/ethnic diversity and household income. Areas near New York City but outside the city limits placed high on household income due to the high cost of living in the area. Within that area only two cities had enough population and sufficiently high racial/ethnic diversity to make the cut. This was a response to criticism of the previous list which was almost exclusively small “white” towns. In 2010, the criteria was changed again so that 21 municipalities made the cut but none in Westchester County. In short, the results were largely pre-cooked based on the data criteria and when they favored New Rochelle they were hailed and when they did not they were buried.
When it suits them, New Rochelle school officials like to compare New Rochelle to Scarsdale. For example, last year they boasted how more students from New Rochelle High School students were accepted into Ivy League schools than Scarsdale students. This claim was widely touted among parents more than happy to parrot such nonsense. Left out of the discussion was the rather obvious fact that New Rochelle High School is 2.5 times larger than Scarsdale and so the percentage of kids from Scarsdale going to Ivy League schools dwarfed New Rochelle.
Less easy to explain will be why high schools with greater numbers of “high needs” students like Yonkers Middle High School (#4) and Port Chester High School (#1,225) are nationally ranked and New Rochelle is not ranked at all. We can expect this will be justified by pointing out that surrounding districts like Mamaroneck, White Plains, Eastchester, Pelham and Mount Vernon are also not ranked. Yet within those 5 districts, New Rochelle underperforms all but Mount Vernon. In an area that New Rochelle likes to tout – the number of students going to college, the College Readiness Index in New Rochelle is just 23.2 where. It is higher in four of the five surrounding districts — Mamaroneck (55.2), White Plains (29.9), Eastchester (48.1) and Pelham (44.9) — and only lower at Mount Vernon (12.3).
The entire list is here: U.S. News & World Report High School Rankings. Excerpts from the districts mentioned in this article are below.
U.S. News & World Report – New Rochelle High School
Total Enrollment 3,454
Total Minority Enrollment 68%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 34%
Proficient in English 93%
Proficient in Math 88%
College Readiness Index 23.2
Ranked #24 Nationally is Yonkers Middle High School
Medal Awarded Gold
Total Enrollment 1,024
Total Minority Enrollment 72%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 67%
Proficient in English 93%
Proficient in Math 95%
College Readiness Index 100.0
Ranked #315 Nationally is Scarsdale High School
Medal Awarded Gold
Total Enrollment 1,433
Total Minority Enrollment 17%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 0%
Proficient in English 99%
Proficient in Math 99%
College Readiness Index 52.5
Ranked #1,225 Port Chester Senior High School
Medal Awarded Silver
Total Enrollment 1,155
Total Minority Enrollment 81%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 52%
Proficient in English 94%
Proficient in Math 92%
College Readiness Index 27.6
Unranked – White Plains Senior High School
Total Enrollment 2,202
Total Minority Enrollment 68%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 31%
Proficient in English 95%
Proficient in Math 94%
College Readiness Index 29.9
Unranked – Mamaroneck High School
Total Enrollment 1,455
Total Minority Enrollment 25%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 6%
Proficient in English 95%
Proficient in Math 94%
College Readiness Index 55.2
Unranked – Mount Vernon High School
Total Enrollment 1,532
Total Minority Enrollment 97%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 66%
Proficient in English 83%
Proficient in Math 72%
College Readiness Index 12.3
Unranked – Eastchester Senior High School
Total Enrollment 905
Total Minority Enrollment 16%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 0%
Proficient in English 96%
Proficient in Math 99%
College Readiness Index 48.1
Unranked – Pelham Memorial High School
Total Enrollment 771
Total Minority Enrollment 25%
Total Economically Disadvantaged 6%
Proficient in English 99%
Proficient in Math 96%
College Readiness Index 44.9