The
following information is from Hartfordmag.com in their
August, 2011 Issue – Great Publication - Visit them often at http://www.hartfordmag.com
!
Contact
person at Hartfordmag.com is editor@hartfordmag.com
Best High Schools
Avon wins again
Greater
Hartford's Best High Schools
by Carol Latter l photo
by Lisa Brisson
Top 3 High Schools:
1. Avon
2. Simsbury
3. Glastonbury
Top 5 /
Bottom 5 Report Cards Chart
School is out for the summer, and so are your teens’ report
cards. After a year of hard work, slightly crooked art projects, flubbed
quizzes, aced make-up tests and stress-inducing exams, the results are finally
in parents’ hands.
It’s a little tougher to assess the grades of your children’s high school – to
know how it’s performing overall, and how it compares with other schools in the
region. While Connecticut’s
Department of Education (DOE) obtains and publishes copious statistics online,
it can be a tedious process to find all of those numbers – if you even know
where to look.
And who’s got the time or energy to pull the same statistics for 32 other high
schools, crunch the numbers, rank the schools in a dozen or more categories,
and come up with a list of the best, middle and worst-performing high schools
in the region?
Hartford Magazine does.
Using the latest information available from DOE, we set out to assess which
offer the best and worst results, ranking all 33 public high schools on a range
of factors to determine which get an “A-plus,” which are scraping by, and which
get a failing grade.
Each year, the DOE creates detailed “school profiles” containing reams of
statistical information on everything from student enrolment figures and hours
of instruction to SAT and CAPT scores. This year, we found that the department
had substantially revamped its website, adding data tables that provided even
fresher information for certain categories. We did the math to determine how
your teen’s high school is doing in comparison with others in the region.
High school rankings chart
Obviously, we could not include all of the available
statistics into our assessment. Instead, we chose those we felt provided a
clear picture of students’ academic achievement, and their commitment to doing
well. In a nutshell, we looked at how much effort students put into getting a
great education, how hard schools try to help them, and the final results.
The first category of scores, “Academic,” is self-explanatory.
It tallies test scores, extra credits, a school’s graduation rate, and the
percentage of students who go on to pursue higher education at a four-year
college.
Percentage of graduates continuing to higher education and number of
in-schools incidents charts
Factors in the “Commitment” category indicate the students’
commitment to doing well in school, both in terms of striving for a high level
of achievement and exhibiting excellent behavior in the classroom. Teacher
absenteeism rates are also included, since they are an indicator, although not
a definitive one, of staff engagement with the school.
Each school received a rank (from 1 to 33) for each of 14 factors. Those
numbers were totaled to give each school an academic score, a commitment score,
and an overall score. Since the top rank is a “1,” lower scores are best.
Academic Chart:
CAPT & SAT scores, higher education
and extra credits
Commitement Chart:
In school
offenses and drop out rates, percentage taking SAT test and required credits to
graduate
We hope you’ll find all of this information useful.
If you have comments, e-mail
us at editor@hartfordmag.com.
***************************************
Top 3 High
Schools 2011
1. Avon
Student
population: (2008-09) 1,052
Rank: 1
Overall score: 51
Academic score: 21
Commitment score: 30
Once again this year, Avon High School
captured the number one ranking among the 33 non-magnet public high schools in
the region. The school took the top spot in both academics and commitment.
In the academic category, Avon had the highest number of students taking extra
credits in math and science (94.1), and the highest percentage of students
going on to a four-year college (85.1). Its students had the second highest
average SAT score, behind Simsbury – and the
second highest graduation rate (98.8), behind Granby. Avon also produced the third highest
total CAPT score (79.38) in Hartford County, behind Canton
and Simsbury.
Avon ranked sixth in terms of the percentage of students who pass AP courses
with a score of 3 or higher – and also in the percentage taking more than the
required number of credits in arts, language and social studies. Its overall
ranking for the academic category was 21 (lower scores are better), compared
with 38 for Simsbury,
the next closest contender.
In the commitment category, Avon had the second highest percentage of students
taking the SAT test – 85.4 – behind Simsbury.
It had the third lowest number of in-school offenses in the county, including
failure to follow school policy, with 5.2 incidents for each 100 students
during the most recent school year. It also had the third lowest dropout rate (1.2
percent), behind Granby and Glastonbury, and third highest percentage of
seniors enrolled in AP courses.
Avon High had the fourth lowest teacher
absentee rate. Its worst marks were seventh for the percentage of juniors and
seniors enrolled in college-level courses, and eighth for the number of credits
required to graduate.
The school also won top honors in HM’s 2010 Best High Schools report, but
markedly improved its overall score from 84 last year to 51 this year.
2. Simsbury
Student population: (2008-09) 1,562
Rank: 2
Overall score: 104
Academic score: 38
Commitment score: 66
Simsbury High placed second in academics, third in
commitment, and second overall. A 40 percent improvement in its academic
score since our 2010 Best High Schools report helped catapult it to second
place overall from fourth last year.
Simsbury seniors earned the highest average SAT
scores, besting their Avon counterparts by a
combined 13 points. Grade 10 students from Simsbury
also boasted the second highest CAPT score, outperformed only by Canton High. The Class of
2009 had the third highest percentage of students going on to a four-year
college, and the sixth highest graduation rate. The school ranked eighth for
students earning a three or higher on AP courses and ninth for the percentage
of students taking more than the required number of credits.
On the commitment side, Simsbury
ranked first for the number of students taking the SAT test. It had the fifth
lowest number of in-school incidents (policy breaches and serious offenses) and
the sixth lowest dropout rate. It had the eighth highest percentage of students
enrolled in college level courses, and the tenth highest percentage of seniors
enrolled in AP courses. Simsbury
also had the twelfth lowest rate of teacher absenteeism.
3. Glastonbury Student population:
(2008-09) 2,066
Rank: 3
Overall score: 106
Academic score: 39
Commitment score: 67
Glastonbury
High nabbed third place in the academic category and fourth in commitment,
posting an overall score just two points behind Simsbury’s to rank third overall.
In academics, Glastonbury had the second highest graduation
rate and the third highest average SAT score in the county. It also ranked
third for students taking more than the required number of credits in math and
science. It achieved the fourth highest total CAPT score and the fourth highest
percentage of students passing AP courses with a score of 3 or higher. It also
came fourth for the number of seniors going on to a four-year college.
In the commitment category,
the school had the lowest number of in-school incidents (policy breaches and
serious offenses) of any school, and the second lowest dropout rate. It took
fifth place for the percentage of students enrolled in college level courses,
and had the sixth highest number of students taking the SAT test. The school
ranked 11th for the percentage of seniors enrolled in AP courses, and 16th for
teacher absenteeism, with an average of 7.3 days lost per teacher during the
school year. HM
Top 5 /
Bottom 5 Report Cards Chart