I would like to see what criteria the collective intelligence of this readership could establish to determine the best high schools. My guess is that it would be far more insightful.

I’ll start – the best high schools encourage innovation in teaching that fosters collaboration and creative thought among all students.

In Maine, the sole gold-medal high school is our only magnet school – a state-chartered HS for math/science with just about 100 students.

As to Silver and Bronze categories, several of the schools are TINY – fewer than 200 students. That’s certainly not a model the state itself wants as it pushes for more and more consolidation. A few schools I know relatively well have not done well achieving AYP; what that says about either the U.S.N.&W.R. ranking or NCLB’s, I can’t say.

This article was circulated in our community by those that are, shall we say, not supportive of some of the current, more progressive, movements in our school district. With the circulation, there was a simple question: What are these schools doing that we are not?

My frustration lies in the data that you unraveled above, so I really appreciate your analysis. Having said that, I think there is value at seeing what more progressive schools are doing. For example, your observation that part of the success of these schools is due to their flexibility is perhaps something of which our more traditional schools can learn.

I’m never in favor of these lists because each school has its own character, culture, and context within which it works. There are too many qualitative properties that go into the success of a school to standardize categories and develop a “score” from which a list of “bests” can be created.