WHS receives honorable mention on magazine’s list

By FULLER ROYAL
Staff Writer

The national publication U.S. News & World Report published its list of the top 100 high schools in America last week.

Based on the education provided to its overall student body and to disadvantaged students, Whiteville High School was one of the list’s 1,086 honorable mentions or “bronze medal” schools.

That honor places WHS in the top 10 percent of the nation’s schools. Only 33 other high schools in North Carolina were recognized.

The school did, however, fall short of making silver or gold because of the low number of Advanced Placement (AP) courses and low rate of successful AP participation by WHS students.

U.S. News analyzed 18,790 public high schools in 40 states using a three-step process. The first two steps were to determine if the schools were serving all of their students well.

State proficiency standards were used to determine the first two steps.

Step one determined if each school’s students were performing better than the average student in the state. Reading and math results were used for this. Also factored in were the number of economically disadvantaged students who were performing at better than state averages.

The second step determined if the students with the least advantages – black, Hispanic and low-income – were performing at higher rates than the state average. Their math and reading scores were compared to their cohorts in the state.
Schools that made it past the first two steps were then assessed to see to what extent they prepared students for college level work.

This third step used AP courses as the benchmark and measured the schools that produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentage of students.

According to the U.S. News explanation of its methodology on its website, the measurement was done by computing a “college readiness index” based on the weighted average of the AP participation rate.

That was measured by taking the number of 12th-grade students who took at least one AP test before or during their senior year and dividing it by the total number of 12th graders.

Also measured was how well the students did on those AP tests.

For the college readiness index, the quality-adjusted AP participation rates were weighted 75 percent in the calculation, and 25 percent of the weight was placed on the simple AP participation rate.

Only schools that had values greater than 20 in their college readiness index scored high enough to meet this criterion for gold medal selection. The minimum of 20 was used since it represents what it would take to have a “critical mass” of students gaining access to college-level coursework.

The top 100 high schools in the United States with the highest college readiness index scores were ranked numerically and classified as gold medalists.

There were no gold medal winners in North Carolina.

The next 405 top-performing high schools nationwide, based on their college readiness index, earned silver status.

The only silver medal winners in the state were Elkin High School in Surry County, A.C. Reynolds High School in Buncombe County, Murphy High School in Cherokee County, Salisbury High School in Rowan County, Statesville High School in Iredell County and Terry Sanford High School in Cumberland County.

There were 1,086 high schools in 40 states that passed the first two steps for bronze status.

Statewide, in this category, WHS was joined by only 27 other high schools including Alleghany High School in Alleghany County, Ashe County High School, Cape Fear High High School in Cumberland County, East Burke High School in Burke County, Gates County Senior High School, Greene Central High School in Greene County, Havelock High School in Craven County and Heide Trask High School in Pender County.

Also, Hiwassee Dam High School in Cherokee County, Kings Mountain High School in Cleveland County, Kinston High School in Lenoir County, Monroe High School in Union County, Moore County High School, Nantahala School in Macon County, North Edgecombe High School in Edgecombe County, Northern Nash High School in Nash County and Pender High School in Pender County.

Also, Polk County High School in Polk County, Roanoke High School in Martin County, Scotland High School in Scotland
County, Thomasville High School in Davidson County, Union High School in Sampson County, Washington High School in Beaufort County, West Caldwell High School in Caldwell County, West Craven High School in Craven County, West Wilkes High School in Wilkes County and Williamston High School in Martin County.

The college readiness scores for the six silver medalists in North Carolina were: Statesville High School, 21.1; Salisbury High School, 24.2; Murphy High School, 25.2; Elkin High School, 25.3, A.C. Reynolds High School, 24.3; Terry Sanford High School, 31.1. WHS was below 20, too low to count toward a silver medal rating.

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va. was ranked first on the list with a college readiness score of 100. The average AP test taker there took 6.5 AP courses and exams.

At Thomas Jefferson, 100 percent of the students participated in at least one AP course, while 97.4 percent of all AP exams at the school were passed.

The school has 1,738 students with a 4.5 percent minority enrollment and 1.1 percent disadvantaged student enrollment.

Thomas Jefferson High School administers more AP exams than any other high school in the nation.