Hanover and Linn High Schools among America’s Best High Schools

U. S. News & World Report – in collaboration with School Evaluation Services, a K-12 education and data research and analysis business that provides parents with education data – analyzed academic and enrollment data from more than 21,000 public high schools to find the very best across the country.

Hanover and Linn High Schools were both awarded the Bronze Medal.  They were only two out of forty-three schools in the state of Kansas to receive this honor.  This is a tribute to the students, faculty, parents, and administration for their dedication to education in Unified School District 223.  Our communities can all be very proud of the accomplishments Linn and Hanover students have achieved.

The first step determined whether each school’s students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state.  They started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state’s assessment test.  They then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to identify the schools that were performing better than statistical expectations.

For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school’s least advantaged students (African-American, Hispanic, and low income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state.  They compare each school’s math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than the Kansas average.

Schools that made it through the first two steps became eligible to be judged nationally on the final step, college readiness performance, using Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate test data as the benchmarks for success, depending on which program was largest at the school.  Advanced Placement is a College Board program that offers college level courses at high schools across the country.  This third step measured which schools produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students.

This was done by computing a college readiness index based on the schools AP or IB participation rate (the number of 12th grade students who took at least one AP or IB test before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders) and how well the students did on those tests.  The latter part, called quality adjusted AP or IB participation, is the number of 12th grade students who took and passed at least one of the tests before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

For the college readiness index, the quality adjusted participation rate was weighted 75 percent in the calculation, and 25 percent of the weight was placed on the simple AP or IB participation rate.  Only schools that had values greater than 20 in their college readiness index scored high enough to meet this criterion for gold and silver medal selection.  The minimum of 20 was used because it represents what it would take to have a critical mass of students gaining access to college level coursework.