Potomac Falls High School Came First in Loudoun...
The 2007 annual survey of the best public high schools in the country conducted by Newsweek Magazine placed Potomac Falls High School ahead of all other public high schools in the county. Potomac Falls High School was at a respectable position of 183rd out of 1200 top schools nationwide.
As would be expected Fairfax County Public Schools dominated the top tier of the list for Virginia Schools. I think Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) did pretty well, considering the fact that most of our schools are relatively new. Also there was no Loudoun High School in the top 200 bracket in the 2006 Survey, Potomac Falls High School came 354th last year.
Loudoun Valley in Purcellville and Loudoun County in Leesburg were at 247th and 373rd positions respectively on the 2007 list. Do these surveys matter and do they really reflect how good these schools are? I wonder what Dr. Hatrick, the Superintendent of LCPS thinks about this survey.
1 comment:
The Newsweek report has nothing to do with how "great" the schools are. It also does not matter that Loudoun schools are "newer" than Fairfax schools. The Newsweek report figures out the total number of students plus the total number of students taking AP classes, and subtracts the number of students who are receiving free and reduced lunch. The Newsweek report DOES NOT TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION WHAT THE KIDS SCORE ON THE TESTS! The reason Fairfax will ALWAYS score above Loudoun is because their high schools are larger than Loudoun's schools. They also also an IB curriculum, which is similar to AP, so they factor that score in as well. Please do not rely on this ranking as a way to judge how "good" your school is. Loudoun County is obsessed with kids taking AP classes to bump up their rankings, but they are not taking into consideration the fact that most kids are not ready to handle such a challenging curriculum.
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