The Adrian R-III Secondary Building (6-12) received a bronze award from US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT. Nearly 22,000 public secondary schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia were evaluated by the American Institutes for Research using U.S. News' state rankings methodology. The schools included in the evaluation process were identified as having twelfth-grade enrollment and sufficient data to analyze, primarily from the 2009-2010 school year. Two percent, or the top 500 schools, were awarded gold status; 7 percent, or approximately 1,500 schools, were awarded silver status; 13 percent, or almost 2,900 schools, were awarded bronze status; and the remaining 78 percent did not receive a medal.
To
produce the 2012 U.S.News
& World Report
Best
High Schools rankings,
U.S.
News
teamed up with the Washington, D.C.-based American
Institutes for Research
(AIR), one of the largest behavioral and social science research
organizations in the world.
AIR
implemented U.S.
News's
comprehensive rankings methodology, which is based on the key
principles that a great high school must serve all of its students
well, not just those who are college-bound, and that it must be able
to produce measurable academic outcomes to show the school is
successfully educating its student body across a range of performance
indicators.
We
analyzed 21,776 public high schools in 49 states and the District of
Columbia. This is the total number of public high schools that had
12th-grade enrollment and sufficient data, primarily from the
2009-2010 school year, to analyze. (Nebraska was the only state that
did not report enough data and therefore was not evaluated for any
part of the rankings.)
National
rankings
A
three-step process determined the Best High Schools. The first two
steps ensured that the schools serve all of their students well,
using performance on state proficiency tests as the benchmarks. For
those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step
assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for
college-level work.
•
Step 1: The
first step determined whether each school's students were performing
better than statistically expected for the average student in the
state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all
students on each state's high school proficiency tests. We 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.
•
Step 2: For
those schools that made it past this first step, the second step
determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black,
Hispanic, and low-income) were performing better than average for
similar students in the state. We compared 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 this state average.
•
Step 3: 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 or International Baccalaureate test data as the
benchmarks for success, depending on which program was largest at the
school. AP is a College Board program that offers college-level
courses at high schools across the country. The International
Baccalaureate program also offers a college-level curriculum.
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
school's AP or IB participation rate (the number of 12th-grade
students in the 2009-2010 academic year 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 rate, is
the number of 12th-grade students in the 2009-2010 academic year who
took and passed (received an AP score of 3 or higher or an IB score
of 4 or higher) at least one of the tests before or during their
senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.
Any individual AP or IB subject test was considered when determining
if a student took or passed at least one test.
For
the college readiness index, the quality-adjusted participation rate
was weighted 75 percent in the calculation, and the simple AP or IB
participation rate was weighted 25 percent. The test that was taken
by the most students at a particular school—either AP or IB—was
used to calculate that school's
college readiness index.
Only
schools that had values at or above 16.3 in their college readiness
index scored high
enough to meet the criteria
for gold and silver medal selection. The minimum of 16.3 was used
because it's the median (the statistical midpoint) of all the college
readiness index values among all high schools with AP or IB test
takers.
The
maximum college readiness index value is 100.0, which means that
every 12th-grade student during the 2009-2010 academic year in a
particular school took and passed at least one AP or IB test before
or during their senior year.
To
summarize, in order to win a gold or silver medal and be numerically
ranked, a high school had to pass Steps 1 and 2 and have a college
readiness index at or above the median benchmark.
In
total, U.S.
News
nationally ranked the 4,877 highest-scoring schools as gold, silver,
or bronze. A high school's position in the numerical rankings,
whether they were awarded a medal, or whether they were ranked at
all, was dependent on how high they scored in all three steps of the
rankings methodology.
•
Gold medals: Schools
with highest unrounded college readiness index values were
numerically ranked from No. 1 to No. 500 and were the gold medal
winners.
There
were 26 high schools that achieved the maximum 100.0 college
readiness index. In addition, there were instances in which gold or
silver medal schools were tied based on their unrounded college
readiness index values (these values, when published online as part
of the Best High Schools rankings, are rounded to one decimal place).
To
avoid having ties in the numerical rankings, the primary tiebreaker,
which measures the absolute level of success in passing AP or IB
tests, was the unrounded quality-adjusted exams per test taker (the
number of exams that received passing scores divided by the number of
students who took and passed at least one exam).
If
necessary, a second tiebreaker used was exams per test taker, which
was the average number of AP and/or IB exams passed per test taker
(the total exams taken divided by the number of test takers).
•
Silver medals: The
next group of high schools with the highest unrounded college
readiness indexes were numerically ranked No. 501 through No. 2,008
and were the silver medal winners.
•
Bronze medals: An
additional 2,869 high schools that passed the first two steps in the
methodology were awarded bronze medals and are listed alphabetically.
A bronze medal school either does not offer any AP or IB courses, or
its college readiness index was less than the median of 16.3 needed
to be ranked silver.
In
addition to the main gold, silver, and bronze national rankings, we
have also published other numerical rankings for the Best High
Schools in each state and for the Best
Charter Schools
and Best
Magnet Schools
on a national level.
Academic
Indicators
National
Rank
Bronze
College
Readiness Index
N/A
Algebra
1 Proficiency
3.0
English
2 Proficiency
3.3
Student/Teacher
Ratio
15:1
- 06–12 Grades
- 424 Students
- 29Teachers
Adrian
Sr. High
601 NORTH HOUSTON
ADRIAN, MO 64720
601 NORTH HOUSTON
ADRIAN, MO 64720
Phone:
(816) 297-4460
OUTSTANDING & CONGRATULATIONS —ALL OF YOUR HARDWORK and EFFORTS HAVE BEEN REWARDED IN A NATIONAL PUBLICATION! Chris Shanks, Jr. - Sr. High Principal
DESE Link:
