International Academy, Andover, Lahser All Named in Newsweek's Top 500

Three high schools within the Bloomfield Hills Schools system were among the top 500 schools in the country, according to Newsweek.

The International Academy (20), Bloomfield Hills Andover (101) and Bloomfield Hills Lahser (260) were among the 16 schools from Michigan to make the list, which was announced Monday.

District Superintendent Rob Glass said he appreciated the recognition and congratulated the faculty and students. But he also urged residents not to put too much into the rankings.

“We’re proud of our schools and I’m glad we did well, but I’m not really a fan of these lists,” he said. “I view education as a custom business and comparing and ranking across such a broad range can ring hollow to me.”

The news magazine began evaluating high schools in America more than a decade ago but this year revamped its methodology in order to highlight solutions to ongoing challenges in secondary education.

Each school was evaluated on six key components that were valued with a certain percentage of the overall grade:

• graduation rate (25 percent)
• college matriculation rate (25 percent) 
• Advanced Placement tests taken per graduate (25 percent)
• SAT/ACT scores (10 percent)
• average advanced placement test scores (10 percent)
• advanced placement course offerings (5 percent)

The judges measured more than 1,100 public high schools from across the country that were among 10,000 contacted by the magazine.

It was hardly the academy's first mention in the magazine.

The International Academy draws students from all over Oakland County and offers a full International Baccalaureate diploma program. It is the only public high school with a full baccalaureate program and serves roughly 600 students, officials said.

The academy was named the nation’s top public school by Newsweek in 2003, and second in 2004, 2005 and 2009. It was ranked 26^th last year. Andover was ranked 494 and Lahser was 638 last year.

Glass said the fluctuations in the rankings sometimes leave him mystified.

“The IA rankings prove my point,” he said. “The quality of that school is no different than two or three years ago, and yet we can go from the top five to top 20 in one year."

According to the rankings, both the IA and Andover had a student/teacher ratio below 20 (Lahser’s score), and graduation rates at 100 percent and 99 percent respectively. Lahser was at 98 percent and registered 94 percent of graduates heading to college. The IA also led with the highest average SAT score (1976) compared with Andover (1851) and Lahser (1747).

Glass said he wouldn’t even speculate as to the large disparity in overall placement between Andover and Lahser, which share curriculum and teachers. He and administrative staff will begin working with consultants next month on plans to consolidate the high schools for the 2013 school year. The school board unanimously approved the controversial measure in a lengthy school board meeting last Thursday.

“We’ll congratulate out teachers and students on the good job that they’re doing, but we knew that was going on long before (Newsweek) had to tell us,” he said.