Schools

Tosa East Again Named Among Nation's Best High Schools

Newsweek ranks Wauwatosa East No. 798 in its annual survey, this year expanded to the top 1,000.

Newsweek/The Daily Beast once again has ranked as among the best high schools in the nation, naming it No. 798 out of the top 1,000, based on a set of criteria including test scores, graduation rate and number of graduates bound for college.

However, before we start the celebration, it should be noted that last year, – seemingly falling a precipitous 444 places.

But considering that Tosa East did not slip in any statistically significant way in the metrics used in the findings from one year to the next – in fact, it saw a little uptick in its graduation rate and added more AP courses – there must be other reasons for that large drop.

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Since Newsweek does not readily explain the rather large difference in rankings, not only for East but for other area schools we've checked, one has to look back at the methodology and extrapolate a bit.

Sure enough, the magazine narrowly assessed just more than twice as many schools this year (2,300 out of 15,000 total respondents) as it did last year (1,100 out of 10,000 respondents), and doubled the final list.

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So, in a larger pool, Tosa East perhaps finds itself in approximately the same place, proportionately – but it would take a Raider math whiz to explain it fully.

Newsweek used the following criteria and scoring in its methodology:

  • Graduation rate (25 percent of total score) – East scored 98 percent
  • College matriculation rate (25 percent) – East, 89 percent
  • AP/IB/AICE tests taken per student (25 percent) – East, 0.3
  • Average SAT/ACT scores (10 percent) – East, SAT 1,808/ACT 24.2
  • Average AP/IB/AICE scores (10 percent) – East, 3.1
  • AP courses offered per student (5 percent) – not noted in report

It should also be noted that Wauwatosa East is an "open enrollment" category school up against schools in the "selective," "charter," "magnet" and "lottery admission" catergories.


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