New Trier HS not in the News week

New Trier ranked 392 on Newsweek's listing of the top 1000 schools, down 100 from last year and behind Lincolnshire and Highland Park. The ratings formula divided the number of students taking AP or IB tests by the number of graduating seniors. See my earlier post here. (I did not mention New Trier in the post as the ratio clearly was designed for more urban schools, but there are still lessons that can be learned from the article.)

Here is retiring Supt. Bangser's take on the Newsweek school rating. Pioneer Press:

But New Trier Superintendent Hank Bangser isn't shedding any tears over the Winnetka school's ratings slip, since he sees the rankings system as a flawed yardstick in the first place.

"There's clearly not one single measure of a great high school," said Bangser, when Pioneer Press contacted him Tuesday for comment on New Trier's ranking. "It's absurd, ridiculous ... The magazine has promulgated this myth that you can rank high schools using this one criterion."

Bangser said he was contacted but declined to be interviewed for the introduction to the May 8 Newsweek story, "because there was no way I would participate in affirming the legitimacy of something I felt was so ridiculous."

(More on New Trier here.) All schools have room for improvement and the Newsweek story had more scope to it than just the rankings, making an effort to highlight new ideas and successful efforts in this critical area. Nothing ridiculous about that.