'Newsweek' names 4 schools in Middle TN among nation's best

Newsweek changed the way it decides which are the nation’s top high schools, shuffling ranks of the Tennessee schools that made the magazine’s annual list.

Page High in Franklin, absent last year, edged on at number 494 out of 500, one of three Williamson schools represented . But perennial top 100 winner Martin Luther King Jr. Academic High in Nashville was nowhere to be found.

“That’s really odd,” MLK Principal Schunn Turner said. Her school ranked 56th last year.

Newsweek double-checked its America’s Best High Schools data Monday, but a representative said it’s unlikely MLK was left off by mistake. Some schools that made the top 100 last year didn’t rank at all this year because of a more comprehensive formula.

The old way simply considered a school’s number of Advanced Placement tests administered versus the number of graduating seniors. The new way considers those data plus graduation rates, immediate college enrollment, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate test scores, and ACT and SAT college entrance exam scores.

Turner said MLK students are taking fewer AP courses and more honors courses than in prior years, the result of a 2008-09 school policy change.

“Their college may not accept the credit, so some students aren’t taking those particular courses,” she said. “And we don’t require our students to take a certain number, but give them a choice.”

Nashville’s Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High, which ranked 33rd this year and 32nd last year, requires students take AP classes. Students compete to get into both schools because of the magnets’ high academic standards.

Hume-Fogg sophomore Roya Eatevarion said making the list is exciting.

“A lot of people think we are uppity about it, but really we are proud of it and thankful to go to Hume-Fogg,” she said.

Two Williamson County high schools moved higher on the list this year, with Brentwood at 100 and Ravenwood at 284.

“I’m glad to see that there are three schools in there, and hopefully one day we’ll see all of them,” said Ravenwood High School PTO President Cherie Hammond.

Among more than 1,100 high schools reviewed nationally, six Tennessee schools made the 2011 list. Last year, 16 Tennessee schools made a list of more than 1,700.

The calculations changed after Newsweek ’s editors consulted with some of the nation’s most prominent educators about what would make the list a more accurate reflection of high-performing schools producing college-ready students.

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