ICYMI: Chatham High School Tumbles in Most Challenging High Schools

Chatham High School was ranked among the most challenging high schools in the United States, according to the Washington Post.

The annual rankings of the nation’s most challenging high schools from the Washington Post are calculated by taking the number of college-level tests given at a school in the previous calendar year divided by the number of graduates that year. The tests considered are Advanced Placement (AP) exams or the International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education tests, the Washington Post said.

Chatham High School dropped 55 spots in the national ranking, from 743 in 2014 to 798 in 2015’s rankings, according to Washington Post. Its index in 2015 is 2.701, compared to 2.569 in 2014 and 2.321 in 2013.

While simple, the calculation only considers the number of college-level exams administered and does not take into account the scores on the exams. For instance, the highest achievable score on an Advanced Placement exam score is 5. However, students who score a 3 or higher are eligible to receive college credit at many colleges and universities across the country.

To make the list, a school had to have a score of 1.000 or better. To achieve that score, the school had to have as many college-level tests given last year as the number of students who graduated. Magnet schools were not included on the list.

So, if there were 300 graduates last year at a particular school, there would need to be 300 AP tests taken by students at that school to make the list.

The Post defends the rankings as ”a modest standard,” saying, “A school can reach that level if only half of its students take one AP, IB or AICE test in their junior year and one in their senior year.”

Students who take multiple AP exams help a school’s ratio.

According to the 2014 U.S. News & World Report report on the Best High Schools in New Jersey, 66 percent of Chatham High School students took AP exams in 2012-13, with a passing rate of 94 percent. The average number of exams taken per taker was 3.4, with an exam passing rate of 89 percent.

However, years in which participation is low can have a negative impact on a school’s performance on this list, no matter its performance in other areas.

The Washington Post claims simply taking the college-level tests is important:

“AP, IB and AICE are important because they give average students a chance to experience the trauma of heavy college reading lists and long, analytical college examinations. Research has found that even low-performing students who got a 2 on an AP test did significantly better in college than similar students who did not take AP.”

What do you think of the list and the method of calculation from the Washington Post? Let us know in the comments below.