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Community Corner

WI Residents Not Given All Info:

Regarding the announcement made by WISD about how WIHS ranked in the top 2000 high schools in the nation; take a closer look at how Newsweek gathered the information: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/06/america-s-best-high-sch... The following is a quote from that Newsweek article which explains how they got their information: “All the data we analyzed was self-reported by each school for the 2011–12 school year. We invited more than 5,000 high schools to participate in the survey this year, and nearly 2,500 responded. All public high schools in the U.S. are eligible.” Newsweek “invited” 5,000 public high schools to participate in their survey. Of the 5,000 public high schools that were “invited” to participate, Newsweek says that “nearly 2,500 responded”. Doesn’t that mean that just about every district that actually bothered to send Newsweek any information would automatically be on “Newsweek’s Top 2000 High Schools” list? What makes Newsweek’s list even LESS accurate is that Newsweek relied on the districts to “self-report” their data. I found the information for this article (which I assume was provided to Patch by WISD) to very misleading in that it would appear to the reader that WIHS was ranked 715 on the nation’s top 2000 high schools, when in fact Newsweek only “invited” 5000 districts to participate in their survey (the US has more than 25,000 public high schools). Of the “invited” 5000 districts, LESS THAN HALF even bothered to respond to Newsweek’s request for information leaving, in essence: “The Top 2000 US High Schools”. What makes Newsweek’s list even LESS accurate is that Newsweek relied on the districts to “self-report” their data.

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