this always generates some conversation.

A bunch from Florida...  we are doing some really good things in education in our state!

sunshine pumping for Florida schools

These rankings are largely akin to recruiting rankings and final Top 25 polls for football.  They are mostly reflective of the students that these institutions recruit and allow to attend their esteemed facility, and that they don't screw up these students while they are there.  

As my board name reflects, I live in Tucson, where 2 of the Top 10 schools allegedly reside.  The Basis school is a charter school that has selective admissions standards - both for entry, and for continuing re-enrollment each year.  Not good enough - you don't get admitted.  Not working doing well enough, you are not welcome back next year.  If every public school in America had these tools to only offer education to the top 10% of students living in a community, they would look pretty good too, the variable being how "good" your community was in academic values/committment.

The other school in Tucson is University High School.  This is a public school where local students apply for admission.  The school is part of a public school district, and the top students within and outside the district apply for University, get admitted and then attend University High instead of their "regular: high school.  Then of course the regular high school scores poorly on their "rankings" because their top students were siphoned to University. 

So that is the primary component, the quality of students you have coming in.  Then the other measurement is AP participation and success rate.  The College Board must love these rankings -because since most high schools can't recruit only the top students, they can alter the other variable - AP class offerings and testing.  So get your wallets out high schools- buy more AP material, do the tests, and hope to increase your ranking based on that.  College Board and its Educational Testing Service buddy pocket the $$. 

The above is not sour grapes, it is reality.  I have a high school child that could go to either school, but we chose not to.  I did use open enrollment to send them to a "better" high school than my district provides, this high school is in the top 1000 while the district school is not ranked.  So I am "guilty" of contributing to this scenario as well.  And yeah I happened to achieve National Merit Scholar status back in the day so I benefited from this fine system too.

But let's stop chest thumping about how good school A is versus B when the deck is stacked for A and against B, and come up with some real measurements.  If a school has 75% "disadvantaged" kids, how about a better measurement of their outcomes going through school - maybe some test score achievements versus their coursework grades. Or if school A has 300 students taking AP classes, how did they do as a group,  while school B has only 30 students in AP, did they all get pass scores. Instead right now school A has bonus points for having 300 vs 30.

I am no educational theory expert but measuring all high schools the same, and expecting them to all offer the same outcomes.  I know it flies in the face of the American ideal of everyone has equal opportunity for equal outcome, but maybe it is time to formally accept the tiering of High School curriculum and levels, with some schools being vocationally oriented instead of college prep.  I believe this is the norm in several other countries.

Right now these rankings mostly reflect a school's ability to attract/self-select themselves to the top, I pity the teachers at the other schools working hard to help students achieve but will never achieve recognition via this ranking methodology.