We have dropped to #11

According to U.S. News, we dropped from # 8 to # 11. U.S. News Releases 2013 Best High Schools Rankings The Mt. Lebanon School District website posted last year's rankings here. 

U.S. News and World Report, a leading source of education rankings in the nation, released their "Best High School" rankings of the top high school's in the nation. Mt. Lebanon High School received a Silver rating, ranking 8th in the state and #557 nationally. Our high school is the highest ranked Western PA school on the list. The 2012 rankings include data on nearly 22,000 public high schools from 49 states and the District of Columbia.

Pennsylvania rankings show Upper St. Clair at #7, Mt. Lebanon at #11, and North Allegheny at #12.

National rankings improved for 2013. We came in at #510, from #557 last year.
The Mt. Lebanon High School overview can be found here.

Ask the School Board about the renovation

A meeting or so ago, a question was raised about the high school renovation project.  A resident felt that there is confusion concerning what is included on the add/delete alternates lists.  Josephine Posti felt that all the information is published online and didn't feel that a forum, circular, or some other update was in order for the community.

I thought it would be interesting to gather questions about the renovation and post them on another poll.  After your votes are cast, I will submit the most popular questions to the School Board and print their responses here, if or when I receive them. 

You may submit them here anonymously, or email them privately to egillen476@aol.com.  I would like your questions by Sunday, October 2 so that I may start a new poll early next week.

Depending on your response, I may do something like this for the candidates running for Commission and School Board.  I have not heard anything about a Candidate's Forum for November's election, so I may do something later in October, if there is enough interest.

Newsweek's Best Public High Schools in America

Newsweek came out with their list of top ranking high schools in the US, as they have for over ten years. Spoiler alert: Mt. Lebanon didn't make the cut, but neither did Upper St. Clair.

These are challenging times for secondary education. Cash-strapped school districts are cutting back; No Child Left Behind mandates test results; parents and students stress unabated. NEWSWEEK, which has been ranking the top public high schools in America for more than a decade, revamped its methodology this year in hopes of highlighting solutions. We enlisted a panel of experts—Wendy Kopp of Teach For America, Tom Vander Ark of Open Education Solutions (formerly executive director for education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), and Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford professor of education and founder of the School Redesign Network—to develop a yardstick that fully reflects a school’s success turning out college-ready (and life-ready) students. To this end, each school’s score is comprised of six components: graduation rate (25%), college matriculation rate (25%), AP tests taken per graduate (25%), average SAT/ACT scores (10%), average AP/IB/AICE scores (10%), and AP courses offered (5%). (For more information on how these rankings were tabulated, see our Full Methodology.)

Read more: Newsweek's America's Best High Schools 2011 to see which Pittsburgh Schools made the list.