HC, I need your assistance. (nascent US high school education flame thread)

[onodera]

I've always wanted to find out what kind of education American high schools provide. I've heard that your school is a prestigious one, so I guess the level of education there is reasonably high.
Could you please describe the curriculum of natural sciences and math that your school courses cover? I could ask someone else, but I want to examine the current one, because I guess people like rah will say that back in their times everything was better.
Also, as far as I managed to understand your educational system, you need to take a Standards of Learning test (in Virginia) to graduate from high school and a SAT to apply to a university. Is the discrepancy in their difficulty high or are they comparable?

[onodera]

I've taken a look at the Maths SAT at collegeboard.com, and it's trivial. I had to use a piece of paper once, because I was too lazy to unfold two modulus equations in my mind.

[Asher]

The whole concept of SATs seems stupid to me.

[Jon Miller]

I've taken a look at the Maths SAT at collegeboard.com, and it's trivial. I had to use a piece of paper once, because I was too lazy to unfold two modulus equations in my mind.

The SATs are trivial, and I went to a ****ty highschool.

HCs HS would have been amazing 50 years ago, and is better than any I have heard about in europe too (including Russian).

JM

[Jon Miller]

Luckily I can google.

http://academics.tjhsst.edu/mathcs/courses.htm

The advanced science offerings:

http://www.tjhsst.edu/discovery/labs/astronomy.php

http://www.tjhsst.edu/discovery/labs/neuroscience.php

http://www.tjhsst.edu/discovery/labs/optics.php

http://www.tjhsst.edu/discovery/index.php

Note that at least in appearance this place is ridiculously good, not really comparable to the usual highschool education in the US.

JM

[Al B. Sure!]

God damn they have money out the ass

Honestly, I think money is a big factor with respect to education. Your typical public magnet high school (magnet schools are like 'gifted schools') is very selective and has the brightest students you would find anywhere, but they don't have anywhere near the funding of HC's school.

[giblets]

Honestly, I think money is a big factor with respect to education.

Duh. Equal opportunity is for lazy socialists. This is AMERICA.

[Al B. Sure!]

I'm not harping my high school or comparing it to HC's this time but...

To really show how unrepresentative his school is, the US News & World Report that ranked his #1 ranked my high school 45th (out of what? 100,000 or more high schools in the country) so my high school experience was top 1% yet we had no where even close to the resources of his school.

We had decades-old textbooks, a computer lab with then 5-year old original iMacs, etc. Resources were pretty bare-bones. There was nothing my high school had that any other public high school in Philly didn't have.

[Jon Miller]

Actually, when you correct for the wealth of their parents I doubt that TJHSST has a much better success rate than most magnet highschools. The huge offering available is probably really only exploitable by a very small subset of the population which aren't going to all have TJHSST available to attend.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Money spent per student shows almost no correlation with student outcomes

[Al B. Sure!]

Actually, when you correct for the wealth of their parents I doubt that TJHSST has a much better success rate than most magnet highschools. The huge offering available is probably really only exploitable by a very small subset of the population which aren't going to all have TJHSST available to attend.

JM

From the US News & World Report, it might be interesting to note these:
http://education.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/12/09/americas-best-high-schools-top-economically-disadvantaged-schools.html

Economically disadvantaged is a measure of student poverty representing the percent of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch.

Some schools on there like Newcomers High School in Queens have 79% of students considered impoverished by that measure yet are the 6th ranked high school in the country.

My high school is down the list with only 21.3% in poverty.

Needless to say, HC's school isn't on that list

[Al B. Sure!]

Money spent per student shows almost no correlation with student outcomes

I'd bet not if all the magnet schools have the same funding as any other public school and still have high marks close to a school like HC's that seems to have millions in endowment.

[KrazyHorse]

Given that I'm stating a well-known empirical fact, do you mind pausing before engaging in idle speculation?

[Kuciwalker]

endowment

[Al B. Sure!]

Given that I'm stating a well-known empirical fact, do you mind pausing before engaging in idle speculation?

I said I'd bet not... the fact that schools with less funding do as well as HC's school is evidence that money per student shows no correlation with student outcomes. I'm supporting what you just said.