December 11, 2009

Walden III wins Bronze medal in U.S. News ranking

U.S.News and World Report ranks Walden III High School among the best in the country.

The magazine gives Walden a Bronze medal -- one of 50 medals doled out to the state's 500 high schools -- and the only school honored in Racine County.

U.S. News recognized 100 schools across the U.S. with Gold medals -- but found none worthy of that award in Wisconsin. Three state schools were awarded Silver medals: Gibraltar High School in Fish Creek, Milwaukee School of Languages and Rufus King High School in Milwaukee.

Walden, as we've reported before, stands apart from Racine's other public high schools in some measurable stats: Its graduation rate last year, for example, was 100%; the closest another RUSD high school came was Case's 75.6%. Walden's dropout rate was .3%; Case's is 5.4% and Park HS's was 8.4%.

Walden's 10th grade students score significantly higher on standardized tests than students in other RUSD high schools -- for example, 90.5% on Language, compared to Case's 54.9% and Horlick's 50.6%.

Walden has just 298 students, compared to about 2,000 each in Case, Horlick and Park. Seventy-nine percent of Walden's students take the ACT test, and score a composite 22. At Case -- again, the best of the other schools -- only 40% take the ACT, but their composite score bests Walden's by a fraction: 22.1.

Of the 21,786 public high schools examined by U.S. News and its partner in the project, School Evaluation Services, 1,750 were recognized for considerably outperforming their state's standards, based on academic and enrollment data from the 2007-2008 school year. This is the third year the magazine has rated U.S. high schools -- and the top-ranked school each time has been Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA, which offers courses in DNA science, neurobiology and quantum physics. Methodology here.

Based on the percentage of eligible schools in the state awarded Gold or Silver medals, U.S. News ranks Wisconsin schools 44th. The complete state-by-state table is here.

22 comments:

  1. Congrats to Walden!

    Mixed bag of results here though. I think this makes an interesting case for smaller class sizes and schools in general. I don't know if Racine would be ready for that kind of radical change from where we are, but given our performance overall, maybe that is worth considering. It isn't the only factor to be sure, but it might be a key one.

    I'd be curious to find out from some students or teachers on why the performance gaps.

    Maybe a student that attended Walden and one of the other RUSD schools?

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  2. Move this school to the Zahn's Building.... Let's reward these kids with a nice green facility!

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  3. And Hazen want to close Walden III...why?

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  4. 4:42

    You know not a bad idea!

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  5. 4:42

    Not sure, but adding some investment into a school that is working isn't a bad idea. I don't know enough about the location but maybe some other things make sense.

    Why not reward good behavior and encourage improvement? I'd be open to some additional investment. The rest of the city? Well that might be another story but we should build on what works.

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  6. For starters, none of what I'm going to say is an attack on Walden III. By and large, I've been favorably impressed by and with Walden's students. However, who died and made "US News and World Report" our arbiter of educational excellence? And why do we rank high schools and colleges anyway? If the schools meet government standards, they should be considered adequate and if they fail to meet the requirements, they should either be brought up to the norm or closed. Why do we let an upper-middle class mag tell us which schools perform well? Let's stick with standardized test scores and direct contact with the students and their work when we evaluate our schools.

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  7. US News rates education facilities all the time and are fairly well known for it.

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  8. Super news. Congratulations to the students and staff who make this possible. I dont know why RUSD doesnt follow this model elsewhere.

    I am sure that our local right wing bloggers such as Dennis Navtratil or Fred Dooley will find something negative to say. But I am thrilled to see such good news.

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  9. Yes, those guys always hate it when good results come from taxpayer money and dedicated people. They like it much more when money is wasted on poor results and lazy people, requiring more money so that more can be wasted. I hate those unreasonable jerks.

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  10. This is great POSITIVE news for Racine. Why hasn't the Journal Times picked up on it?

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  11. dear 9:39 PM, Yeah, but where did "US News and World Report" get the notion that it had the power and authority to rank schools? It's a privately-owned for-profit periodical, not a publication issued by our government. Who are that mag's pedagogical pundits and why are they in the school-ranking racket?

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  12. Kentucky, Utah, and Georgia rank higher than Wisconsin! Wisconsin is #44 overall? The entire school system needs to be thrown out. We need a fresh approach. We are expecting children to be machines, but they are not! They need space and freedom to explore and learn...they need staff that will guide and support them, not criticize and belittle them...they need high expectations, but need to be given the tools to reach those standards.

    How much longer can we be ok with the decades old approach that IS NOT WORKING?

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  13. Dear 11:42 A.M., How right you are about our antiquated school system and its mechanical approach to education! When you research the sorry story of public pedagogy in America, you'll see that wealthy industrialists demanded and got taxpayer-supported schools which turned kids into docile wage slaves who'd work hard and accept boredom as well as regimentation as facts of life. Our early public schools were patterned on the Prussian institutions which ground out obedient drudges and cannon fodder for the Kaiser. The sooner we junk that type of indoctrination-cum-social control, the better!

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  14. I really like the Zahns idea. The price over time will be lower than maintaining a school from the civil war. The NEW part of Walden is from 1920. Time to put a great school in a great location ~ right by several museums! Great idea!

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  15. I've partnered with Walden students and teachers over the course of the last 2 or so years and am continually impressed by their conduct and engagement with community issues. Way to go Walden... RUSD should use their progress as a blueprint for the rest.

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  16. It's not the schools that are failing the kids, but the parents that are failing the kids in many cases. Tough part is figuring how to make the parents be better parents. Is it Walden and its teachers that make the kids at Walden succeed or is it the parents that are the driving force? Congrats to Walden!

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  17. In regards to 12/11/09 3:25 Please note exception to your comments. Although Walden III HS is indeed smaller, our class sizes are often the same or larger than the other larger high schools in town. Please also note that HOW learning and understanding are facilitated, not just the rote learning to satisfy an educational standard, may make the difference, especially when a climate of respect and responsibility is provided for all students.

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  18. John Christensen, Walden Student12/13/2009 11:33 AM

    In regards to moving our school, you will find some negativity. A lot of students, especially the older ones, are very attached to the building and its character. In most of the rooms and all over the hallways you can find student-made murals that date back to when the school was named Franklin. The building itself shows a lot of our respectable history and we take pride in saying, despite the fact that we work in a crumbling environment, we still come out all right. There are no two rooms in the school that are the same, and I love the uniqueness of the building. But, I personally wouldn't mind moving into a greener building. I'm just saying that other people will object.

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  19. I think the results have more to do with this school's ability to exclude certain students than anything else. If every school in the district had the right to continuously exclude students with a history of behavior and/or academic problems, then they would likely have the same results. Walden isn't exactly changing lives. It's just filled with more receptive students. The real question is...how can we get the same results with the general student population?

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  20. Follow their lead... respect and context make a world of difference in teaching youth.

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  21. And - follow the French way... if by 16 you don't want to be in school.. you're failing, skipping, screwing off.... fine... go.

    We should have vocational/apprenticeship programs in place for those not interested.

    And yes, family structure is really important, and where it doesn't exist, the community becomes that structure... like it or not.

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