U.S. News and World Report recently came out with its first-ever ranking of the top 100 high schools in America.  Nearly a quarter of those schools, 23 to be exact, were located in California.  While that statistic sounds impressive, the reality is actually much more complicated.

First, a good number of the top California schools were not regular traditional high schools, but were charter schools, special college preparatory schools, and magnet schools.  For example, 10th-ranked Preuss School is a charter school run under the joint oversight of UC San Diego and the San Diego school district.  Thirty-first-ranked Amino Leadership Charter School in Inglewood is run by the Green Dot charter school organization (the Los Angeles school board notoriously denied Green Dot’s application to take over failing Locke High School in Watts despite the ardent support of local parents).

Further, while U.S. News bases its rankings, in part, on standardized test scores, the magazine evidently does not look at scores from all types of tests.  In California the main state standardized test is the California Standards Test (CST).  However, there is also the California University’s Early Assessment Program (EAP) that tests11th-grade students in English and math to determine if they are in danger of needing remedial instruction in either of those two subjects upon entering college.  Virtually all California students in grades 2 through 11 must take the CST, while the EAP is a voluntary for 11th graders.

As reported in PRI’s recently released book Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice, students at some schools on the U.S. News list did well on both the CST and the EAP.  For example, in 2006 at 12th-ranked Gretchen Whitney High School in Cerritos in Southern California, 97 percent of the school’s 11th graders scored at or above the proficient level on the CST English exam, while 91 percent scored at the college-ready level on the EAP English exam.  A perfect 100 percent of 11th graders at Gretchen Whitney took both exams.

The story was not so simple at other California regular public high schools on the U.S. News list.  At 82nd-ranked San Marino High School outside Pasadena, although 86 percent of 11th graders in 2006 scored at or above the proficient level on the CST English exam, a surprisingly anemic 48 percent scored at the college-ready mark on the EAP English test.    One hundred percent of 11th graders at San Marino took both exams.

At 89th-ranked Palos Verdes Peninsula (PVP) High School on the Los Angeles coastline, 69 percent of the school’s 11th graders scored at or above the proficient level on the 2006 English CST, but just 44 percent hit the college-ready mark on the English EAP.  Again, 100 percent of PVP 11th graders took both exams.  At 93rd-ranked Palos Verdes High School, PVP’s sister school, two-thirds of 11th graders scored at or above the proficient level on the English CST, but just one-third taking the English EAP scored at the college-ready level.  Eight out of 10 11th graders at Palos Verdes High took both exams.

Parents at many of these highly ranked schools may feel self-satisfied at seeing their children’s schools make the U.S. News list.  However, a deeper, more wide-ranging look at the performance of these high schools show that many are not preparing their students adequately for higher education, which is no doubt the goal of most these students’ parents.  These parents, many of whom may be “house poor” because of high mortgage payments, should have more options in choosing their children’s schools, including school-choice vouchers.   As it stands, their children’s high schools may have the dubious distinction of earning the two R’s: ranking and remediation.