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Friday, May 18, 2012

Adrian ranks very high in U.S.A Best High Schools


The Adrian R-III Secondary Building (6-12) received a bronze award from US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT. Nearly 22,000 public secondary schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia were evaluated by the American Institutes for Research using U.S. News' state rankings methodology. The schools included in the evaluation process were identified as having twelfth-grade enrollment and sufficient data to analyze, primarily from the 2009-2010 school year. Two percent, or the top 500 schools, were awarded gold status; 7 percent, or approximately 1,500 schools, were awarded silver status; 13 percent, or almost 2,900 schools, were awarded bronze status; and the remaining 78 percent did not receive a medal.

To produce the 2012 U.S.News & World ReportBest High Schools rankings, U.S. Newsteamed up with the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research(AIR), one of the largest behavioral and social science research organizations in the world.

AIR implemented U.S. News's comprehensive rankings methodology, which is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college-bound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.


We analyzed 21,776 public high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia. This is the total number of public high schools that had 12th-grade enrollment and sufficient data, primarily from the 2009-2010 school year, to analyze. (Nebraska was the only state that did not report enough data and therefore was not evaluated for any part of the rankings.)

National rankings
A three-step process determined the Best High Schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all of their students well, using performance on state proficiency tests as the benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

Step 1: The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state's high school proficiency tests. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to identify the schools that were performing better than statistical expectations.

Step 2: For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low-income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average.

Step 3: Schools that made it through the first two steps became eligible to be judged nationally on the final step—college-readiness performance—using Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate test data as the benchmarks for success, depending on which program was largest at the school. AP is a College Board program that offers college-level courses at high schools across the country. The International Baccalaureate program also offers a college-level curriculum.

This third step measured which schools produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students. This was done by computing a "college readiness index" based on the school's AP or IB participation rate (the number of 12th-grade students in the 2009-2010 academic year who took at least one AP or IB test before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders) and how well the students did on those tests.

The latter part, called quality-adjusted AP or IB participation rate, is the number of 12th-grade students in the 2009-2010 academic year who took and passed (received an AP score of 3 or higher or an IB score of 4 or higher) at least one of the tests before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school. Any individual AP or IB subject test was considered when determining if a student took or passed at least one test.

For the college readiness index, the quality-adjusted participation rate was weighted 75 percent in the calculation, and the simple AP or IB participation rate was weighted 25 percent. The test that was taken by the most students at a particular school—either AP or IB—was used to calculate that school's college readiness index.

Only schools that had values at or above 16.3 in their college readiness index scored high
enough to meet the criteria for gold and silver medal selection. The minimum of 16.3 was used because it's the median (the statistical midpoint) of all the college readiness index values among all high schools with AP or IB test takers.

The maximum college readiness index value is 100.0, which means that every 12th-grade student during the 2009-2010 academic year in a particular school took and passed at least one AP or IB test before or during their senior year.

To summarize, in order to win a gold or silver medal and be numerically ranked, a high school had to pass Steps 1 and 2 and have a college readiness index at or above the median benchmark.
In total, U.S. Newsnationally ranked the 4,877 highest-scoring schools as gold, silver, or bronze. A high school's position in the numerical rankings, whether they were awarded a medal, or whether they were ranked at all, was dependent on how high they scored in all three steps of the rankings methodology.

Gold medals: Schools with highest unrounded college readiness index values were numerically ranked from No. 1 to No. 500 and were the gold medal winners.
There were 26 high schools that achieved the maximum 100.0 college readiness index. In addition, there were instances in which gold or silver medal schools were tied based on their unrounded college readiness index values (these values, when published online as part of the Best High Schools rankings, are rounded to one decimal place).
To avoid having ties in the numerical rankings, the primary tiebreaker, which measures the absolute level of success in passing AP or IB tests, was the unrounded quality-adjusted exams per test taker (the number of exams that received passing scores divided by the number of students who took and passed at least one exam).
If necessary, a second tiebreaker used was exams per test taker, which was the average number of AP and/or IB exams passed per test taker (the total exams taken divided by the number of test takers).

Silver medals: The next group of high schools with the highest unrounded college readiness indexes were numerically ranked No. 501 through No. 2,008 and were the silver medal winners.

Bronze medals: An additional 2,869 high schools that passed the first two steps in the methodology were awarded bronze medals and are listed alphabetically. A bronze medal school either does not offer any AP or IB courses, or its college readiness index was less than the median of 16.3 needed to be ranked silver.

In addition to the main gold, silver, and bronze national rankings, we have also published other numerical rankings for the Best High Schools in each state and for the Best Charter Schoolsand Best Magnet Schoolson a national level.
Academic Indicators
National Rank
Bronze
College Readiness Index
N/A
Algebra 1 Proficiency
3.0
English 2 Proficiency
3.3
Student/Teacher Ratio
15:1
  • 06–12 Grades
  • 424 Students
  • 29Teachers
Adrian Sr. High
601 NORTH HOUSTON
ADRIAN, MO 64720
Phone: (816) 297-4460
District: Adrian R-III

OUTSTANDING & CONGRATULATIONS —ALL OF YOUR  HARDWORK and EFFORTS HAVE BEEN REWARDED IN A NATIONAL PUBLICATION! Chris Shanks, Jr. - Sr. High Principal


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