To the Editor:

Incorrect conclusions have been reached about the cause of Princeton High School’s failure to appear in the U.S. News and World Report public high school rankings this year [see page one stories May 1, May 8, Town Topics]. Once ranked tenth in New Jersey and 196th in the United States, Princeton is reported by school board and district representatives to have done more poorly this time around because the ranking system does not fully appreciate PHS’s AP program, the range of international colleges graduates attend, or the fact that, due to the school’s diverse student body, students are exceptionally likely to miss school due to religious holidays and vacations. The fact is, however, that none of these factors had any effect on Princeton’s ranking. U.S. News does not use attendance or college data in its rankings at all, and AP (or IB) participation rates do not come in until the last of three steps used to determine a school’s rank. Princeton High School failed to pass the second step, which examines the effectiveness with which a school serves its economically disadvantaged population, and were thereby rendered ineligible to receive a bronze medal or a rank.

The U.S. News data for Princeton High School and West Windsor High School South, ranked eighth in the state, is remarkably similar. The only significant differences are West Windsor’s higher minority enrollment (58 percent to PHS’s 33 percent) and the proficiency rates of the two schools’ disadvantaged students. While the proficiency rates of non-disadvantaged students at the two schools are nearly identical at around 96 percent, free and reduced lunch students at Princeton High School are far less likely to be proficient than those at West Windsor South: 65 percent of the disadvantaged students of PHS and 80 percent of those of West Windsor pass the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA). Consequently, the achievement gap at PHS is about twice the size of that at West Windsor. These differences put Princeton High School below the state average for economically disadvantaged student proficiency and West Windsor well above. Similarly, Montgomery High School, which has an even better disadvantaged student proficiency rate than West Windsor, was ranked 20th regardless of the fact that it has a much lower AP participation rate than PHS. I hope that readers will become aware that the true problem is not the ranking system but the school district’s apparent difficulty educating economically disadvantaged students. U.S. News’s commitment to evaluate how schools educate all students is explanation enough for Princeton High School’s ranking.

Margaret Schrayer

Spruce Street