South Side High School is one of nation's best

South Side High School is again among the top 100 high schools in the nation in Newsweek’s annual list, released last week. It received a ranking of 85. And while school officials said they were pleased about being in the top 100, they expressed disappointment about changes in Newsweek’s methodology, which caused South Side to drop from 51st in the nation last year.

“I know Newsweek’s emphasis is on college readiness, which has been a priority of this school district and I’m very pleased to see that in the eyes of others, we have achieved that goal,” said school Superintendent Dr. William Johnson. “I really need to thank the community for giving us the resources that enable us to be ranked among the best in this country.”

“It’s always nice to be in the top 100,” said school Principal Dr. Carol Burris, “but I’m disappointed by their use of SAT scores and the percentage of students who go to college, which are more a measure of a community’s affluence than a measure of the effects of an educational program.

“This list also includes schools for the gifted and by using SAT scores, schools for the gifted rose to the top of the list regardless of student participation in advanced classes,” she added. “Jay Matthews (the reporter who used to compile the list) actually excluded schools where SAT scores were so high that they were obviously schools for gifted students.”

“I’m very proud that we’re in the top 100,” said school board president Liz Dion. “But many of the schools in the ranking are magnet and charter schools, and we’re a public school with a diverse population.”

“By including SATs as a factor, not a screen,” Johnson said, “what they’ve done is to introduce elements that have nothing to do with the quality of school programs and have little or nothing to do with college completion. The SATs are one of the worst predictors of success in college. The other thing is that SATs are a biased measure and again are only partially related to success in school.”

Johnson explained that charter and magnet schools screen students on the basis of ability, and because of that, they will be among the highest on Newsweek’s list. “It’s not so much that we fell down the list,” Johnson said, “we’re still among those at the top — but because of the introduction of SAT scores, schools that weren’t there before are there now.”