Newsweek ranks Houston ISD's Lee among nation's elite
Well, here's a head-scratcher.
Two of the Houston ISD high schools that Superintendent Terry Grier says are in dire need of major overhauls to rescue kids from almost certain failure are ranked among the nation's elite on Newsweek magazine's latest list of America's Best High Schools.
Lee High School, the magazine says, is the 151st-best high school in America and among the nation's top 1 percent. That's just below HISD's prestigious Bellaire High School and YES Prep Southeast, the Houston charter school that's widely considered one of the best charter schools in America. Lee, according to Newsweek, is beating KIPP Houston High School (No. 176), Spring Branch Memorial (No. 220) and HISD Westside (No. 312).
HISD's Sharpstown is ranked No. 556, better than any campus in the more highly regarded Cypress-Fairbanks school district.
Only the top 6 percent high schools in America -- about 1,600 campuses -- appear on the magazine's list.
The news comes just days after HISD confirmed more than 160 teachers at Lee, Sharpstown and a handful of other schools have been given their walking papers because they aren't getting the job done. Here's what our Ericka Mellon reported Friday. Lee, you might recall, is about to get its third principal since Grier arrived in Houston last fall.
So, what gives?
For starters, Newsweek's rankings are freakishly simplistic. All they do is divide the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge exams attempted at the entire campus in a given year by the number of graduating seniors. It makes no difference how many of those students earned passing grades on the tests. Here's a detailed