The U.S. News and World Report releases an analysis of the high schools in Michigan every year on May 12. With a “Top 25” list, the website shows the rankings of every high school in Michigan.

The rankings include the population of the school, the student-teacher ratio, college readiness and an average for math and reading proficiencies.
There are three steps to determining these numbers. The first step: whether each school’s students are performing better than what is statistically expected.

“We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state’s high school proficiency tests,” U.S. News & World Report writer Robert Morse stated on the magazine’s website. “We then factored in the percentages of economically disadvantaged students – who tend to score lower – enrolled at the schools to identify schools performing much better than statistical expectations.”

Fenton High School is not in the top 25. Most of the schools that made it are either private schools with full IB/AP programming or large schools with many disadvantaged students.

The second step assesses whether a school’s disadvantaged students were passing at the level of other disadvantaged students in the state. The final test judges college-readiness performance using AP or IB test data.

When comparing FHS scores to the “Top 25” schools, the facts do not show a big difference in math and reading proficiency. The Fenton teacher-student ratio is 1:20, math proficiency is 2.1, reading proficiency is 2.7 and college readiness is 26.3. There is, however, a noticeable difference between FHS and neighboring schools. Lake Fenton High School has the same reading and math proficiency levels, but only 11.3 for college readiness. Holly High School has the same teacher-student ratio but their college readiness is 23.1.

The U.S. News and World Report ranking is just one indicator of performance. The progress made by other schools provides a guide for all schools to follow in order to improve the education of their students.

“I think it is important to use data to measure achievement and to do better when you know better,” Principal Mark Suchowski said. “I think our community values well-rounded students who are prepared to go out into the world and be successful and I think that our programming provides students that opportunity.”