Riverside High Receives Bronze Recognition
By Cindy Beattie
January 24, 2008
Riverside High School, Oakland, Iowa ranked in the top 8.5% of schools surveyed in U.S. News & World Report's first annual America's Best High Schools. The report appeared in the magazine's December 10, 2007 edition.
Only 36 high schools in the state of Iowa were honored, and Riverside was the only high school in Pottawattamie County to earn recognition.
U.S. News & World Report with the assistance of School Evaluation Services, a K-12 education data research business, analyzed 18,790 schools from 40 states using 2005-06 school year data. This was the number of public high schools in each state that had grade 12 enrollment and sufficient data to analyze. Ten states were not included because they did not provide data.
Magazine officials explained, "A three step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all of their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks."
Step One measured whether the school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state, factoring in economically disadvantaged students.
Step Two looked at the schools least-advantaged students to see if they were performing better than average for similar students in the state.
For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step was based solely on Advanced Placement (AP) courses. This step assessed the degree to which schools that use AP classes prepared students for college-level work. Riverside offers dual-credit college classes through Iowa Western Community College. It does not offer AP classes which are a different type of college prep course. Since AP classes are not the college prep option used at Riverside, the school was not eligible in this survey for the third step.
To be eligible for Gold or Silver recognition schools were required to offer AP classes. Riverside received a Bronze recognition for its success in Steps one and two. A total of 1086 schools were awarded Bronze level recognition.
Also earning Bronze recognitions in this area were Nishna Valley and Harlan.
