The US News & World Report 2012 Best High Schools ratings ranked Aragon as the fifty-fifth best school in the state and the two hundred seventy-seventh best school in the nation. Aragon also achieved the distinction of being ranked as the eighty-fifth best school in the country for the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math, collectively known in education as STEM. Such achievements have placed Aragon as the top-ranked school in the San Mateo Union High School District in all categories.
US News & World Report is not alone in their evaluations; Newsweek has given Aragon the similar rankings of two hundred forty-fifth in the country and fortieth in the state. A big feat for the staff, administration, and students, Mr. Coe remarks, “This is a vindication of the curriculum and the teaching methods that the faculty is using. It also attests to the fact that they are able to motivate students to do their best.”
To rank schools, US News & World Report teamed up with the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization. They employ a three-step methodology the news magazine explains aims to “provide a clear, unbiased picture of how well public schools serve all of their students. . . in preparing them to demonstrate proficiency in basic skills as well as readiness for college-level work.”
In the first two steps, the research firm sought to determine how well a school served its underprivileged students and minorities. They first determined how well a school’s general populations did on standardized reading and math tests, then applied the amount of low-income and minority students to their data. Schools with disadvantaged students scoring higher than the statewide average were passed on to the third level.
In California, all public schools are required to devise a plan, called the Single Plan for Student Achievement, that lays out how they will address the needs of all students. Mr. Coe explains, “The plan forces you to look at test data for a variety of disaggregated groups. By looking at that we have been able to identify particular groups of students that we want to make sure we are doing all we can for. [Aragon] has been doing the longest and probably the most sustained effort on it.”
Schools that pass the second step are then evaluated based on college readiness, which is defined by how well a school prepares students for college-level work as evaluated by Advanced Placement (AP) participation and achievement. Schools are each given a college readiness index, which is determined by two separate calculations. The first one, which constitutes 25 percent of the total index, is measured by how many seniors attempted at least one AP test throughout their high school career. The second one, which is 75 percent of the total index, measures how many seniors took an AP test and passed. Overall, Aragon’s college readiness index was 54.4 out of 100, which ranked it at two hundred and seventy-seventh in the nation out of the four thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven schools proceeding to the final ranking.
AP classes are designed as rigorous college-level courses to im- part skills on students that will be useful in higher education. Physics teacher Steve Ratto thinks much of Aragon’s success with AP courses comes from teachers who teach pre-AP classes. “We spend a lot of time in the regular classes making sure that students have the knowledge and the ability and the drive. The teachers in general here are very good at preparing students, so that when they get [to AP], they can shine.”
Aragon has made recent strides in the science and technology subjects, as evident by a ranking of eighty-fifth in the country for STEM achievement. The STEM Achievement Index is calculated similarly to the college readiness index; however, AP tests considered for the ranking are only within STEM subjects. Aragon graduate Rashmi Jain, a sophomore at UC San Diego, notes, “My AP science classes gave me the basic foundation info that comes up repeatedly in college classes. Because of AP science at Aragon, I was able to get ahead in college science classes.”
Overall, the US News & World Report ranking affects how Aragon is viewed on a both a local and national basis, providing further incentive for all schools to develop and maintain high achieving students. The news agency notes that “recognizing schools that are performing well and providing them as models to other schools will inspire educators and communities to do better.”
