South High recognized in U.S. News rankings

Dan Glaun

Great Neck South High School has won recognition for its overall and science, technology, engineering and mathematics performance in the 2013 U.S. News and World Report rankings of the country’s high school.

The rankings, based on data from the 2010-2011 school year, list Great Neck South as the 17th best high school in the state, the 86th best in the nation and as the 42th best school for STEM fields overall.

Great Neck South High School principal Susan Eliott and Great Neck Public Schools Superintendent Tom Dolan voiced similar reactions in interviews, saying they were pleased with the rankings but that such outside assessments are not considered important by administrators.

“It’s nice affirmation, but it’s not the thing that defines us,” Dolan said, adding that he was not certain of the rankings’ methodology. 

“U.S. News and World Report’s and Newsweek’s job is to sell their product, not to effectively evaluate schools,” he said.

“It’s interesting – it’s always nice to get a high rating and you always want a high rating,” Elliott said. “At the same time I think it’s very important that we not use that to direct what we do.”

Both Elliott and Dolan said the school placed no special emphasis on STEM education, and that any high ranking was due to overall excellence rather than prioritizing science or technology classes.

“If what you’re doing is really trying to have authentic and substantial and though provoking education everywhere, that’s going to beef up any part of it,” Elliott said. “If you’re trying to do it any other way, it would probably ultimately diminish what you’re doing.”

“It’s not something that we’ve worked any harder on than anything else,” Dolan said. “It’ just a fortuitous benefit for being a good high school.”

U.S. News and World Reports calculates its high school rankings by comparing students’ performance in math and reading proficiency tests to state averages, with the results weighted for the percentage of economically disadvantaged students at the school. 

The rankings also take into account how well minority and low-income students perform relative to their peers and how students participate and perform on Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests.

While Great Neck South ranked highly, Great Neck North High School did not – a result that did not concern Dolan, who said magazine rankings were not a good measure of a school’s performance.

“I personally don’t put a lot of stock on it,” Dolan said. “I can’t really make any connection to what it says about North. I would rather rely on individual students’ qualitative experiences. I hope every one of our kids has a great high school experience, and I believe that most do.”

According to U.S. News and World Report, Great Neck North and South had 98 percent or greater proficiency rates on state math and reading exams, but a larger proportion of Great Neck South students participated in Advanced Placement course work and tests.

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