On the front page of the Cactus Shadows home page you will find the following statement:
Now we would take exception with that statement primarily because the Newsweek Challenge Index is only a narrow measure the percentage of students and and the number of Cambridge\AP\IB tests that they take, and not how the students performed on those tests. Any school claiming they were the ‘best’ because of this list is being disingenuous.
But since the district insists on claiming it is the 9th best high school in Arizona (why isn’t it the best?), we thought we would look how the district did in this year’s rankings and just like the shocking slip in the ‘Excelling’ state ratings for some of our schools, Cactus Shadows has slipped completely off the Challenge Index list now hosted at the Washington Post.
At a board meeting about SAT and AP testing, an administrator claimed that the reason for the drop in AP test participation rates was due to the high costs of the tests. Of course she failed to mention 1) That the College Board offers reduced fees 2) The state of Arizona offers funds for those needing assistance 3) If it wanted the district could allow for tax credits to pay for the costs of those test.
With a school that offers both IB and AP it is hard to understand how Cactus Shadows fell off the list. We believe that the lack of high expectations found in our district is to blame.
What do you think is the cause?
Watch: You need to delve a little deeper into this Newsweek challenge for High School Ranking...You do realize this is an application process and only schools that submit themselves for ranking are considered (there may also be a processing fee) Maybe more schools submitted their application than previous years, maybe not but don't go ranking schools based on newsweek any quicker than validating an Excelling label here in Arizona. We have plenty to fault this district for legitimately!
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