City High Schools Shut Out From Newsweek's Top 100

Newsweek magazine's new list of top public high schools snubbed city schools, granting none of them a ranking among the country's top 100. Just nine are mentioned on the magazine's longer list of 1,258 high schools. The top-ranked city school, the High School for Arts and Business in Queens, placed at no. 351. Forest Hills High School, also in Queens, squeezed in at no. 1,159.

Schools in New York's suburban counties, meanwhile, dominated. Westchester County had 30 schools; Suffolk had 22, and Nassau County had 35, including three in the top 50.

Newsweek's "Challenge Index" depends on a single ratio: the total number of advanced tests taken divided by the total number of graduating seniors. Schools where a majority of students take advanced courses, known as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams, come out on top.

Of the nine city schools on the list, five were in Queens, one in Staten Island, and three in Brooklyn. Newsweek compiles a separate list, called the "Public Elites," of schools with exceptionally high ratios. The Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School, and Hunter College High School all made that list.

The list's creator, Jay Mathews, called the city's performance on the general list embarrassing.

"It means that they're letting the American assumption that poor kids can't do high-level work control their schools," Mr. Mathews told the New York Sun yesterday.

The list comes as Mayor Bloomberg declared yesterday that his school reforms — which kicked off when he took control of the schools in 2002 — have begun to pay off, a conclusion based on record-high graduation rates.

Not all inner-city districts were shunned by the list. Mr. Mathews pointed to five schools from such areas among the top 100, including a California high school at which none of the students had parents who graduated college ranked no. 9. Nineteen public schools in Los Angeles also made Newsweek's complete list. Only 5% of American high schools make the Challenge Index list, Mr. Mathews said.

Some cautioned against using the list as a benchmark of academic progress. A Washington, D.C., think tank, Education Sector, released a report last year calling the rankings "seriously flawed." Many schools on Newsweek's 2005 list had wide racial achievement gaps and high dropout rates, the report found.