How We Got the Rankings: RI’s Top High Schools 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
What followed was precise statistical analysis, guided by a methodology used in similar rankings created elsewhere in New England. After collecting the relevant data, we calculated the average values in each of the categories and the degree to which each school either exceeded or failed to reach those averages.
Those deviations from the average were standardized so that different categories could be compared meaningfully, and then we used a weighting formula to give certain categories more importance than others. We wanted, for example, a school’s student-teacher ratio to matter more in our ranking than its Math SAT scores – though test scores all together account for 60% of the weighting.
The weightings for calculations were as follows:
Student/Teacher Ratio 15%
Per Pupil Spending 15%
NECAP-English 10%
NECAP-Math 10%
NECAP-Science 10%
SAT-Verbal 10%
SAT-Math 10%
SAT-Writing 10%
Graduation Rate 10%
Each school’s weighted numbers were added into a single evaluative number, which, when ordered from highest to lowest, gave us our ranking.
To see the Top High School chart with data, plus rankings, go here.
For a printable version of RI's Top High Schools 2012, with the full chart of rankings and summaries of key articles, Download PDF
Related Articles
- The Top High Schools in Rhode Island 2012
- CHART: RI’s High Schools 2012, From #1 to #51
- How We Got the Rankings: RI’s Top High Schools 2012
- Who Moved Up, Who Moved Down: RI’s Top High Schools 2012
- The Link Between Schools and Home Values: RI’s Top High Schools 2012
- RI’s #1 School 2012: East Greenwich High School
- RI’s #2 School 2012: Narragansett High School
- RI’s #3 School 2012: Exeter-West Greenwich Senior High School
- RI’s #4 School 2012: South Kingstown High School
- RI’s #5 School 2012: Barrington High School
- RI’s #6 School 2012: Chariho Regional High School
- RI’s #7 School 2012: Westerly High School
- RI’s #8 School 2012: Portsmouth High School
- RI’s #9 School 2012: Scituate High School
- RI’s #10 School 2012: Classical High School
- College Admissions: Why High School Rankings Matter to Colleges
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Comments:
Domenic Merolla
9:33am on Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Can someone PLEASE explain to me why this rankings list rewards spending WAY more to get MUCH worse results??? Just look at the top schools! Schools with SAT and NECAP scores considerably lower than Barrington and East Greenwich spend exorbitant amounts per student only to get bad results. Why isn't high return on investment lauded!?