School principals answered 300 questions on topics ranging from student scores to school lunches. The magazine combined those answers with students' socioeconomic profiles to find out how a school was doing given its student makeup. The bigger the budget, the better the education. There were huge swings in spending, even regionally. It's how, not how much, schools spend that makes the difference.
Small classes give students an edge.
Size is not an issue in high school classes, where teachers mostly lecture to students. Computers make the difference. Almost all 1,700 schools surveyed had computers, so technology alone doesn't guarantee a better education. Students gain most from computers when they're taught to use them as a tool for gathering information or solving a problem. When computers are merely games, or rote learning machines, they're not as effective.