A national, high-school-ranking index published this week lists Evanston Township High School as the fourth best school in the state.
The Challenge Index — compiled by Jay Mathews, an education reporter and columnist for the Washington Post — ranked 737 high schools by dividing the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams given in May at each school into the size of the school’s graduating class.
ETHS ranked 164th nationally. The school came in behind University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Ill., which placed 38th; Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill., which placed 66th, and New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Ill., which placed 158th.
Margaret Lurie, the president of the school board for District 202, which oversees ETHS, said the school’s teachers and administrators have been trying to get more students enrolled in AP classes, with a special focus on minority students.
“(The ranking) is sort of an affirmation of what we’ve been trying to do,” Lurie said.
The number of minority students enrolled in AP courses at ETHS has steadily increased since 1995, said Judith Levinson, Director of Research, Evaluation and Assessment at ETHS. She said 74 percent of minority students taking exams in 2000 and 2001 received a score of three or higher, which typically counts as college credit at most universities. In 2002, that number rose to 77 percent.
“I think that it is certainly to our favor that we rank so high,” Levinson said. “I don’t doubt that we have a high-quality program and that we do well by our students.”
But Levinson questioned the index because its sole criterion is the AP or IB exam.
Mathews said he purposely made his index simple so as not to confuse the average person.
The best predictor of college completion is the number of students who take difficult high school courses, like AP classes, he said.
“A, B- or C-student who takes an AP course … is still much better off than if that person had not been allowed to take that course and take that test,” Mathews said.
