SET High is in the top 3% of all high schools in California!

[prin...@sethigh.org]

Dear Students, Parents, and Guardians:

I told you at the start of the school year about how well this year's Seniors did on the California State testing (the CAASPP) last year when they took the test as Juniors.  Well, the results are officially in across the State and you may have read about how San Diego Unified and the whole State are lauding the general increase in test scores.  What is not getting much attention is that a little charter school called SET High is in the top 3% (2.29%, actually) of all high schools in California!  There are only 50 schools in the entire State that outperformed our students, only two of which are in San Diego County: Canyon Crest Academy and Grossmont Middle College.  Think of all of the other great high schools in the county that are not SET High, Canyon Crest, or Grossmont Middle College!  This is absolutely astounding!

I don't usually put much stock in State testing because I know that it doesn't measure what really makes us special, but when we get results like this, we're going to shout it from the rooftops!

The break down looks like the following (you can explore the results yourself here):

Combined (ELA and Math)

• Number of schools in California we beat: 2129
• Number of schools in California who did better: 50
• SET High Percentile relative to all public high schools in California: 2.29%

English Language Arts

• Percent Met or Exceeded Expectations: 87.93% (go humanities!)
• Number of schools in California we beat: 2116
• Number of schools in California who did better: 62
• SET High Percentile relative to all public high schools in California: 2.85%

Mathematics

• Percent Met or Exceeded Expectations: 50% (the math test is really difficult!)
• Number of schools in California we beat: 1931
• Number of schools in California who did better: 230
• SET High Percentile relative to all public high schools in California: 10.56%
  
  

As long as our suspension rate last year was lower than the previous year, we should be a shoo-in for a third California Distinguished School Award.  Take a moment to think about how dumb it is that something like a suspension rate would be the difference between us getting recognized or not.  While it might be true that the number of students who get in trouble could be a reflection on the culture of the school, the small movements from year-to-year certainly aren't.

All of these measurements are interesting to look at, but each is such a small piece of the entire picture.  Especially at this time when our measurements are looking so good, I want to advocate for a more holistic look at school success.  There will be times in the future when we are not so lucky to be on this side of testing success, so I want to make sure that it doesn't sound like sour grapes when I complain that test scores are not the real measure of a school.  Yes, we are special, but it's not because our test scores put us in the top 3% of schools.  I argue that we're special primarily because of our school culture, and no, that culture cannot be measured by a simple measure like the suspension rate!

Thank you again to these amazing Seniors!  The pressure is on, Juniors!

Dr. McCurdy