If other schools offer more advanced-placement courses, perhaps you need to find out why. Young said that with any ranking there is the fear that the information will be misused, that readers will see only the headlines. Clearly, the schools at the bottom are qualitatively different than the schools at the top. But whether the school that is ranked first is really better than the school that is ranked second, I don't think we can make those fine distinctions. Young said it's important to look at the socioeconomic level of a district in evaluating its high school.
New Jersey does that through the use of DFGs.
In high school sports, competition is similarly broken down by the type of school, Young noted. The method used by The Star-Ledger does not allow for comparison of overall scores between groups. The Star-Ledger project, which will be supplemented by others in the coming year, is part of the newspaper's commitment to the residents of the state to learn more about what is going on in their hometown schools. The hope is to help parents and community members ensure that, with each graduating class, every single youngster has been given the tools to be all that he or she can be.