Jay Mathews explains why he does not accept criticism about his Challenge Index for ranking high schools. He started ranking high schools in 1998. Public school evangelists continue to criticize the index.
To create the index for a given group of schools, I calculated the number of AP or IB tests given at each school, then divided by the number of students in the June graduating class, so that big schools would not have an advantage over small ones. Using the graduating class as an indicator of school size tends to level the playing field for schools that draw from low-income neighborhoods with heavy dropout rates, because the strength of each AP or IB program is measured only against the number of students who are committed enough to earn a diploma.
Mathew’s rationale for the Challenge Index makes sense. It smarts that a journalist and not an educator created it.
That embarrassment aside, the Challenge Index gives priority to each school’s attention to the most gifted and talented students. I wonder what other indices account directly for changing support a school makes for these students?
I don’t know the answer to this question: What index ranks high school student accomplishment by the quality of learning technology they use? For example, how do Tablet PC high schools rank against non-Tablet PC high schools?
I’d say stick to tablet pcs; this index seems a narrow and reductivist way to approach the complex question of what makes a good school.
I agree with you that the Challenge Index reduces schooling to a single outcome: the measured accomplishment of students at the highest level available in instructional programs. I also agree that schooling appears complex, but mostly to those of us concerned with the operations of schools. And, I agree about choosing a school first that has students using Tablet PCs and other advanced technologies. Yet, I don’t know of empirical, objective evidence of increased student learning that validates my preferences. For people concerned first with student learning, not school operations with or without advanced technologies, the Challenge Index allows everyone to compare student learning accomplishments within and between schools. It seems to me that such comparisons do not necessarily replace other views of any school. I wonder why so many educators have not given for decades priority to the range of student learning rates over operations.