Boston Magazine says spending more is a big deal!

The Boston Magazine has just published its Top 50 high schools inside the i495 beltway around Boston. Franklin did NOT make this listing and as I looked at the data, I began to wonder why.

I made a copy of the Top 50 and then added Franklin to work with a listing of 51 schools. When you look at the data this way, Franklin compares very well.

• When looking at the enrollment, only 8 high schools are larger!
• When sorting by Student-Teacher ratio, only 7 schools have a greater ratio that Franklin
• When looking at the graduation rate, Franklin ties with Cohasset and still beats 11 other schools
• When looking at the MCAS English scores, Franklin ties with 9 schools and beats 7 more
• When looking at the MCAS Science scores, Franklin ties with Hingham and Marblehead and beats 25 more!
• When looking at the Avg SAT Reading scores, Franklin beats 7 schools
• When looking at the Avg SAT Writing scores, Franklin ties with Pentucket, Ashland and Lynnfield and beats 8 more
• When looking at the Avg SAT Math scores, Franklin beat 15 other schools
• When looking at the Percent AP Proficiency scores, Franklin beat 15 other schools
• When looking at the # of AP Classes offered, only Boston Latin beat Franklin!
• When looking at the # of varsity sports offered, Franklin ties with Concord-Carlisle and Cohasset and still beat 21 other schools
• When looking at the # of clubs offered, Franklin tied with Norwell and still beat 19 other schools

So the weighting of some of the data had to be the cause for Franklin not to be in this Top50. There were two categories where Franklin did not do so well:

• When looking at the MCAS Math scores, Franklin beats 4 schools
• When looking at the percent going to college, Franklin ties with Cohasset and Reading and beats one other school (Ashland)

Why were the MCAS Math scores apparently weighted more than the Avg SAT Math scores?

Why was the percent going to college weighed so high? Isn't high school supposed to prepare you for life?

I think the real driver behind why Franklin is not on this listing has to do with money. Only Georgetown spends less than Franklin on this listing of the Top50! I believe that if the weighting on the per pupil expenditures was considered differently, that is spending less would actually be better than spending more, Franklin would have made this listing!


The Milford Daily News article is here:
http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x1526497624/MetroWest-and-Milford-area-schools-make-magazine-list

The Boston Magazine listing is here:
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/best-schools-boston-2012-top-50/

My copy of 51 schools can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0wjbnXDBhczT0EyaVhBRjF5TmM/edit