9486 in the collection
Oops! Vermont school’s No. 5 ranking by U.S. News was a mistake
Ohanian Comment: When U. S. News and World Report announced that Montpelier High School is the Number 5 school in the country, I didn't read beyond the headline. These rating don't interest me and I rather doubted that it was "true" anyway. I felt pretty certain that the judges hadn't paid any attention to Montpelier's remarkable Vision for Students, which IS worth noting.
Vision for Students
Montpelier High School aspires to provide all of its students with those intellectual, practical, social skills the ability to think critically, to solve complex problems, and to work well with others that will be necessary in any future endeavor and also to provide opportunities for each student to realize his or her unique creative potential. In educating our students for the future, we embrace modernity thoughtfully. While it is important for every student to have a skilled understanding of modern technology, we also cherish the traditional sources of human contentment and meaning playing, reading, expressing oneself through language and art; working with tools growing, preparing and eating healthy foods; enjoying camaraderie and one’s own vitality through athletic activity; making decisions and celebrating as a community; living in harmony with nature. We cherish, as well, the legacy of fortitude, self-reliance, and neighborliness that we have inherited from previous generations of Vermonters. We believe that a sense of belonging and responsibility to the community are the foundation of thoughtful citizenship. Montpelier High School is dedicated to enlivening in its students those human qualities kindness, generosity, honesty, perseverance, self-reflection, self-respect and respect for others, a sense of humor, a “vivid sense of the beautiful”*, and an abiding gratitude for life that are essential to personal fulfillment and the maintenance of a free, just, and healthy society.
*Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, “Educating for Independent Thought” (from the New York Times, October, 1952) Bonanza Books, 1954
Now we learn that Standard & Poor's made a math error--and embarrassed a community. Good thing Montpelier never made much of a deal of the ranking in the first place. And let this serve as a warning to everybody else: Don't Trust the Numbers.
Staff
MONTPELIER — It’s every math teacher’s mantra: Check your work.
Apparently, Standard & Poor’s didn’t.
The company, which analyzed data for U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of America’s top 100 schools, made a mistake in calculating the score for Montpelier High School and erroneously ranked it the nation’s fifth-best public high school.
Now, the magazine has apologized to the school, saying that while Montpelier High is among the top 500 of 1,800 high schools nationally, it is not No. 5.
Editor Brian Kelly told school officials in an e-mail Monday that he was sorry to say that due to a calculation error, the first edition of America’s Best High Schools, published earlier this month by U.S. News & World Report, mistakenly lists Montpelier High School as the fifth best public high school in America.
— Staff
Burlington Free Press
2007-12-10
http://burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071210/NEWS/71210026
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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