Cedar Rapids Washington High School is among "America's Best High Schools" by U.S. News and World Report ...

We just received the following e-mail from Washington High School on Friday, December 11, 2009. Not sure what type of medal Washington received, but they are among 1 of the Top 561 high schools that made the 2010 list. There are 18, 743 public high schools ...

CEDAR RAPIDS WASHINGTON AGAIN PICKED AS ONE OF "AMERICA'S
BEST HIGH SCHOOLS" BY U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT

For the second consecutive year, Cedar Rapids Washington has been named to U.S. News and World Report’s list of "America’s Best High Schools."
Washington was one of the only three Iowa high schools that met the three criteria required for inclusion on the 2010 list of 561 schools considered to be
the top-performing high schools in the nation.

According to U.S. News and World Report, a three-step process
determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools
serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the
benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third
step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level
work.

A total of 561 American public high schools cleared those three tests
out of 18,743 schools that were studied. Those 561 schools were named "America’s
Best High Schools." The 100 with the highest College Readiness Index scores were
named Gold Award schools, and the remaining 461 became Silver Award
schools.

Dr. Ralph Plagman, Washington Principal, said that, "Washington rose to
the top of the class, we believe, because of our school’s relentless efforts to
prepare our students to do well on the ITED and our school’s constant emphasis
on Advanced Placement participation. Washington High School has won many awards – three National Blue Ribbon awards and seven times on Newsweek’s List of ‘Best American High School’ among others. The two U.S. News and World Report Silver Awards may top all of the others!"

VIEW LINK: http://www.USNEWS.COM/SECTIONS/EDUCATION/HIGH-SCHOOLS/

• Here are the three steps in the selection process:
  The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state on the reading and math portions of the Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED).


• The second 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. They compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than the state average.


• Schools that made it through the first two steps became eligible to be
  judged nationally on the final step, college-readiness performance, using
  Advanced Placement test 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. This was done by computing a "college
  readiness index" based on the school's AP participation rate and how well the students did on those tests.

Two of our three children have either graduated or are currently at Washington High School. I was in the first graduating class at Washington High School, when Dr. Plagman arrived at the high school. Both my sister and brother graduated earlier than me at Washington H.S.

Robin Tucker