Recently, Newsweek announced its 2013 list of America’s Best High Schools. The schools were chosen based on six criteria: graduation rate (25 percent), college acceptance rate (25 percent), AP/IB/AICE tests taken per student (25 percent), average SAT/ACT scores (10 percent), average AP/IB/AICE scores (10 percent), and percent of students enrolled in at least one AP/IB/AICE course (5 percent). Click here for the full list.
Many of the schools honored are familiar to us at Ascend Education. Four years ago, Glendale Unified High School District in Arizona was experiencing an unacceptable level of Algebra 1 failures. They put together a solid turnaround strategy that included the use of Ascend Math at all nine of their high schools. Just one semester into their plan district-wide algebra failure rates declined from 40% to 17%. At Moon Valley High School failures dropped 25%. At Washington High School failures dropped 55%. Thunderbird High School saw Algebra 1 failures drop more than 65%! Newsweek has named seven of Glendale’s high schools to this prestigious list including Moon Valley, Washington, Thunderbird, Apollo, Cortez, Glendale, and Sunnyslope.
Also appearing in Newsweek’s list of the best are Verrado High School of Buckeye, AZ and Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs, CO. Both schools are avid users of Ascend Math.
Congratulations to all of the schools and all of the educators nationwide who every year put their hearts and minds into making a difference. Thank you Newsweek. We need more positive press like this.
Mike Edgren is VP of Communications for Ascend Education