Health & Fitness
RI’s High Schools 2012, From #1 to #51
A brief opinion piece on our school rank according to GoLocal and that here again, arts and physical programs are not included in ranking criteria.
Last week, GoLocal released their third annual ranking of Rhode Island High Schools, from #1 through #51. Their ranking methodology is explained in the footnotes of the chart their site, and explained in more detail within the PDF itself.
According to GoLocal:
How did GoLocalProv come up with its Top High Schools rankings?
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Carefully. We gathered hundreds of pieces of data related to school quality: reading, math, and writing test scores (both the New England Common Assessment Program, or NECAP, scores, as well as SATs), student-teacher ratios, spending per pupil, and graduation rates for 51 public, charter, and technical schools in the state.
What followed was precise statistical analysis, guided by a methodology used in similar rankings created elsewhere in New England. After collecting the relevant data, we calculated the average values in each of the categories and the degree to which each school either exceeded or failed to reach those averages.
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Barrington ranks #5 based on GoLocalProv's criteria, though the charts break down where we rank by category too. We are higher in some areas and lower than others.
This analysis is pretty timely given .
On the agenda is a "" budget which includes various cuts and increases to school items.
Notably included is the Wood Shop program, which would require a tax increase to save, for teacher salary and to bring the shop up to Fire code. While a contentious topic by itself, I find it more curious that in no school ranking are arts and physical programs even included.
On the one hand, it is understandable why towns continually target these for cuts. If towns are only measured on certain criteria, anything not part of that measure becomes a "nice to have" rather than a "must have" at budget time.
But on the other hand, it might be time to get those metrics into the same category of prominence as SATs, Math, Verbal and Written skills. Given the challenges we face as a nation (and planet), lateral/critical thinking and health care are not "nice to haves".