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Tuesday, January 9, 2007
‘Best’ Schools: How Do You Tell?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While doing my grocery shopping this weekend, I spied the latest Atlanta Magazine, whose cover advertised the area’s “best” high schools.
I cringe whenever editors propose a story on the “best” or “top” or “most excellent” schools. Usually, those ratings are based on test scores, and any education reporter worth her salt knows test scores don’t tell everything about a school.
I remember visiting a Gainesville elementary a couple years ago that President Bush had talked up in a speech. One of the first things that greeted me when I walked down the main hall was a bulletin board with multi-colored charts of student test scores, sliced and diced by grade, subject and teacher.
Saying this campus was test-score obsessed would have been an understatement. But that was the point.
The principal told me he did everything he could to ensure students performed well on standardized exams. That included outlawing anything that wasn’t strictly academic, such as school assemblies and class parties, and cutting into social studies so more time could be spent on reading, arithmetic and test prep.
His plan worked. His campus was considered a model by no less than the president. But I guess I’ll always wonder: Given the choice, would Bush have sent his own kids there?
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