Ah, another chance to see how your high school measured up against the more than 18,000 public high schools in the United States.

U.S. News & World Report has entered the world of high school rankings with its first ever list of “America’s Best High Schools.” Look out Newsweek, there’s a new dog in town!

OK, OK. I’ll shut up and cut to the chase.

The top local high schools according to U.S. News are…

#28: Edgemont Jr./Sr. High School, Scarsdale Greenburgh

#29: Greeley High School, Chappaqua

#52: Rye High School, Rye

#55: Scarsdale High School, Scarsdale

#75: Blind Brook High School, Rye Brook

#91: Irvington High School, Irvington

Click here to watch a video interview I shot recently with U.S. News editor Brian Kelly, in which he defends the magazine’s controversial college rankings.

U.S. News analyzed 18,790 public high schools in 40 states using data from the 2005-06 school year using a methodology developed by School Evaluation Services, a K-12 education data research business run by Standard & Poor’s.

It was a three-step process:

The first step determined whether each school’s students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in their state, using reading and math test results for all students on each state’s high school test. The rankings then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations.

The next step determined whether the school’s least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low-income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state, using math and reading proficiency rates.

Lastly, schools that made it through the first two steps were judged according to college-readiness performance, using Advanced Placement data as the benchmark for success. This third step measured which schools produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students.

Mamaroneck school officials have just released a letter that went home to parents of students at Hommocks Middle School.

The subject is the mysterious reassignment of two guidance counselors, Elizabeth Dunhoff and Haruko Hirose. It spells out what district officials are going to do next, and explains their silence on the details.

letter-to-hommocks-parents-11-29-07.pdf

Back in 1975, President Gerald Ford passed the first federal special-education law in response to discriminatory treatment by public education agencies against students with disabilities. This legislation later became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA as it is commonly called.

Now tomorrow marks the 32nd annual Special Education Day in the United States.

I know there are many special-education advocates and parents on this board, and so I want to take this opportunity to recognize the work you do for these children. In my years covering special education, I have come to share in many success stories, but also have seen a fair share of struggles. At the heart of each case, however, are amazing children. And I wish them nothing but the best, now and always.

When a Garnerville family approached the Rockland Board of Cooperative Educational Services about having their daughter take a BOCES cosmetology class, they were turned away. Why? Because the girl had been home-schooled.

Read more about the issue here and check out my colleague Randi Weiner discussing it on NewsCenter Now in the segment below.

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When Vice President Dick Cheney fell asleep during an important meeting, he was roundly criticized…but I’m pretty sure no one resigned over the impromptu nap.

Not so in East Ramapo, where seeing school board president Nathan Rothschild fall asleep during a public presentation so enraged one woman that she resigned her position on a district committee. Read more of this entry »

As school parent-teacher associations look for new ways to raise money  that are more enticing than selling candy, they’ve come up with some new ideas.

Here’s one from Dobbs Ferry.  The middle/high school PTSA is running a fundraiser with the Barnes and Noble on Central Park Avenue in Yonkers.

It’ll last all weekend. And there are special events – book signings, guest readers, entertainment from the school chorus, a student art show.

So you can do your holiday shopping while supporting your school.

You just present a voucher to the cashier and voila! a portion is donated to the PTA.

And I thought wrapping paper was innovative, back in the day. Not to mention those cases of citrus fruit.

I personally hated candy-selling. It seemed to me that the hardest sell was at the parents, to push them to go out and solicit money.  Is this better?

Nyack schools is the latest district to become part of the debate between the pros and cons of artificial turf. The district had wanted to put the turf on two highly used fields and included the material in an upcoming bond issue that also would fix roofs and electricial systems, upgrade security and add air conditioning to the band room and high school auditorium, among other things. The vote is set for mid-December.

There are numerous artificial turf fields in Westchester and Rockland, so most local athletes have played on them. Is there a general concensus on them?

Watch out Harvard, Stanford and Princeton—you may be perennial favorites on U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, but when it comes to another ranking system, you might as well be safety schools.

Witness the 2007-2008 “Power Rankings” by CollegeHumor.com. The Web site used criterion such as “bar closing time”, “cute college girls” and “closest Taco Bell” (“Possibly one of the most important statistics we offer,” according to a CollegeHumor.com release) to determine its top schools.

Leading the pack was Penn State, with a total score of 100. Closer to home, New York University ranked 12th and Rutgers University ranked 30th. Two SUNY schools also made the 50-school list — SUNY Buffalo (#34) and SUNY Oswego (#47). Noticeably absent were all eight Ivy League colleges, along with Stanford, Duke, MIT and a host of other schools that did well on the latest U.S. News list.

Better luck next year!

For those who don’t know the back story, here is a reason many parents are upset about the mystery surrounding the two guidance counselors who have been administratively reassigned.

A former music teacher at Hommocks Middle School, Omar Rodriguez, pleaded guilty in February to statutory rape and child endangerment.

Hired by the district in 2004, he was arrested in 2006 after several students accused him of rubbing and hugging them behind closed doors in his classroom. After the arrest, a Connecticut girl came forward to say he raped her while she was singing in the church choir he directed.

Two of the students’ families have sued, saying the warning signs were there and district officials had been negligent.

I bet the Rodriguez case is a subtext of school Superintendent Paul Fried’s letter to parents.

It’s in one sentence: “First, and most importantly, I do want you to know that at this time I have no reason to believe that the health and safety of any child has been put at risk.”

I think that sounds like an attempt to be reassuring. It makes me wonder if, whatever this is, it doesn’t involve the counselors’ interactions with students.

Three new education databases have just been posted online! Click here to search items such as 2006 Regents test scores, state test scores in grades 3-8 and detailed district profiles.

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Does this happen all over the place?

A friend of mine has an issue at school about parents doing their kids’ work.

The twist is that these are group projects. And get this, the parents of the kids in a couple of the groups are actually meeting to divvy up the work they’ll be doing for their kids on the project.

And get this – one of the kids involved complained publically that someone else’s PARENT was messing up on the project.

A batch of school districts got more money from the state – with strings attached.

To be accountable, district officials had to propose exactly what they wanted to do with the money, why it would be worth it and how you could tell.

North Rockland and Yonkers were among the districts that put together these Contracts for Excellence.

Watch Gov. Spitzer and Education Commissioner Richard Mills talk about it, webcast live at www.nysed.gov starting at 2 p.m.

Yonkers Superintendent Bernie Pierorazio is in Buffalo for the announcement, which will also be broadcast on WDMC Channel 75.

Teachers will be holding workshops to share their passions with students – at Claremont School this week and Ossining High School Dec. 12.

According to BOCES school communications coordinator Chris Heath, the workshops run the gamut, from wrestling to yoga to different arts and crafts.

What a great idea. Think of the levels on which it works: offers kids fast introductions to stuff they might be interested in but haven’t been introduced to at home or in school; demonstrates life-long learning; makes personal connections among students and teachers (and don’t try to tell me the tone of a school doesn’t affect kids).

And of course it would provide a respite from the curriculum necessitated by the Regents and NCLB.

Folks from Ossining,  I want to know afterward which teachers have the most unusual or unexpected passions.

It’s an institutional Freudian slip: The voicemail message for the guidance Department at Hommocks Middle School asks the caller to leave messages for Peter Moore, who left at the end of last year; Cal Chiang, who retired last year; and of course Elizabeth Denhoff and Haruko Hirose, who both have been administratively reassigned.

Well, the Hechinger seminar on higher education just ended and to tell you the truth — I’m exhausted! The weekend was packed with interesting discussions, and everyone really was so kind and so intelligent. Thanks to many for your insights into the complex world of higher ed!

I sincerely hope you all enjoy these videos, and I ask that you please pardon any imperfections — of which there are sure to be many! I essentially began the videos as an experiment, and really was just learning as I went along, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.