"...erroneous rankings for the high schools on U.S. News & World Report's "Best High Schools" list...."

The National Center for Education Statistics plans to check data on about 5,000 high schools after faulty information from the federal agency led to erroneous rankings for three high schools on U.S. News & World Report’s yearly “Best High Schools” report......However, Jeff Horn, the principal at Green Valley High School in Henderson, Nev., noted that his school’s number 13 ranking was based on federal statistics that mistakenly said his school had 477 students, 111 teachers, and a 100 percent passing rate on Advanced Placement tests that school year. In actuality, the school has about 2,850 students, a student-teacher ratio that is closer to 24 to 1, and an AP pass rate of about 64 percent. Student-teacher ratios and AP pass rates are a part of the magazine’s ranking system...

Education Week:  Statistics Agency to Review 'Best High Schools' Data

U.S. News to Survey Teacher Prep Programs: Data available Spring 2012

“It is time to start holding teacher-preparation programs more accountable for the impact of their graduates on student learning,”  Arne Duncan Secretary, Department of Education

On January 20th U.S. News & World Report announced it plans to survey teacher prep programs nationwide, in partnership with the non-profit National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). The methodology to be used was developed by NCTQ.

“We want to know what teachers are being taught,” said Brian Kelly, editor of U.S. News. “We’re partnering with NCTQ because they’ve developed a great methodology to look deeply into these important institutions and compare them across the country.”


U.S. News and NCTQ will award grades to each of the programs under review. They will identify the top schools of education in the country as well as the institutions whose program designs fall so far below standard that they leave their graduates ill equipped to teach.


Programs will be rated by their performance on 17 different standards, which were developed by evaluating the highest caliber research on education, best practices from both the U.S. and foreign countries with excellent educational systems, and the advice of national experts across many subject areas. The standards are calibrated for undergraduate and graduate levels, and can be applied to programs that prepare elementary, secondary and special education teachers.


Program ratings will be derived from a digest of course materials (including course syllabi and textbooks) supplied by education schools themselves, as well as surveys and other publicly available information.

 Read more here.

Some of the response from these higher education institutions is published in an article, Anger Over New Rankings, in ‘Inside Higher Ed.’  You can read the entire article here.  Where did your child's teacher attend college? Find out and let us know here. Post a comment.