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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Class Struggle - Maryland, Virginia and the U.S. News best high schools list


Class Struggle
- Maryland, Virginia and the U.S. News best high schools list
:

"As I said in the previous post, I asked some follow up questions of Paul Gazzerro, the Standard and Poor's analyst who leads the number crunching for the U.S. News America's Best High Schools list. I had been getting emails from Washington area readers asking why no Maryland schools, and only two Virginia schools, made their top 100 list. (The top 100 list of high schools I do for Newsweek, using a different formula, has ten Maryland and Virginia schools this year.)

Gazzerro was quick to respond. Here are my questions and his answers:

Mathews:

Two questions--first, Maryland-based survey expert Sid Groeneman speculated that the absence of disadvantaged student data for Maryland, as noted on your list, might have prevented you from putting any Md. schools in the top 100. He said the footnote on yr list indicated 8 states did not provide disadvantaged student data. Did that actually have any effect on you ability to rate any schools in those states?"