That said, there are certain high schools that offer more to teenage learners than others. It’s that simple,” according to Andrea Clement Santiago of Verywell Health. “The fewer years of education you’ve completed, the fewer doors are open to you. Dunellen had a 1.294 index on Mathews’ rating system, which divides the number of AP, IB and AICE tests given annually by the number of seniors who graduated.George Eastman, the founder of Kodak film who changed the face of photography, said, “The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education.” Countless studies show that after primary school, receiving a solid secondary education is critical to later life success. Research has found that even low-performing students who got a (low score) on an AP test did significantly better in college than similar students who did not take AP.”Īccording to Mathews’ research, 23 percent of Dunellen graduates passed at least one college-level test during their high school careers. “AP, IB and Cambridge are important because they give average students a chance to experience the trauma of heavy college reading lists and long, analytical college examinations. “I decided not to count passing rates in this way because I found that many high schools kept those rates artificially high by allowing only top students to take the courses,” Mathews wrote. In his column, Mathews explained why he takes into account the number of tests given, and not, as other ranking systems do, how well students fare on exams. “He believed that any kid, regardless of their background, could be coached up to take and do well with the most challenging courses that are offered, and I agree with that,” Mosley said, “so we’ve tried to push that and our kids have been pretty successful considering our ranking.”
Mosley, who previously served as Dunellen High School’s principal, said he has been reading Mathews’ columns for years and was influenced as an educator by Mathews’ perspective. Mathews’ focus since has been to further explore Garfield’s success and “identify those schools working hardest to challenge students from all backgrounds with courses such as AP and International Baccalaureate.” Ten years prior, Mathews, according to his column, had a life-altering experience upon discovering that Garfield High School, located in a poor Hispanic neighborhood in East Los Angeles, “could produce 26 percent of all the successful Mexican American Advanced Placement calculus students in the country by giving students more time and encouragement to learn.” It matters how you are doing while you are here with us, and we are going to do everything we can to help you compete, not just with Dunellen students, but with students from the best communities in the United States.”ĭunellen epitomizes the demographic Mathews wanted to highlight when he began his rankings in 1998. “We always tell them, it doesn’t matter where you grew up or what your parents do. “This ranking is so important for us because as our demographics change and we get a different population in our schools, we have the ability - regardless of the demographics - to not only have our students take challenging courses, but they can excel in those challenging courses, and that’s what we were trying to accomplish,” Dunellen Schools Superintendent Gene Mosley said. Forty-one percent of Dunellen’s students come from families that qualify for lunch subsidies. One of New Jersey’s smallest public high schools, according to 2016 State Department of Education data, with an enrollment of 342 students, Dunellen has a Hispanic/Latino population just under 45 percent and an African-American population just under 15 percent. Dunellen ranked 2,008 in the country, an improvement from its position on the list a year ago. The Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies topped the list of Middlesex County representatives on Mathews’ rankings at No. READ: Education news from around Central Jersey READ: Faber students and staff show their love of bicycling
READ: Dunellen students recovering from injuries in Times Square crash Nationally renowned education columnist Jay Mathews has compiled a list of America’s Most Challenging High Schools for the past 20 years, predicating those rankings on a ratio that compares the number of students who take Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education tests in a given year to the number of seniors who graduate that same year.ĭunellen was one of 17 Middlesex County high schools and one of 89 from New Jersey to be recognized on Mathews’ list, which is based on 2016 academic performance.
For the second consecutive year, Dunellen has been recognized as one of the country’s most challenging high schools, according to the Washington Post's national rankings.
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