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W-WCHS gets high national marks from leading U.S. news magazine A national news magazine has rated a Wilkes County school one of the top in the nation for performing better than expected with students from the least advantaged groups. This week's issue of U.S. News and World Report releases its 2008 list of America's Best High Schools, and Washington-Wilkes Comprehensive High School in Washington was listed among 1,064 Bronze Award winners. "We're very thrilled," said Principal Steve Echols, "They looked at over 18,000 public schools nationwide, and we were chosen as one of only 19 schools in the whole state of Georgia to be recognized." Echols says the distinction casts all Wilkes County schools in a good light. "This really reflectsnot only what we're doing in the high school, it reflectson what each school in the school system has done to prepare all our students to be ready for high school." The smaller size of the school system creates a close relationship with the primary, elementary, and middle schools that works to students' advantage. "They all get our students ready to succeed in high school and beyond," he said. The magazine's rankings used reading and math scores for lowincome students compared with statistical expectations, factoring in the proficiency of what the magazine called "least advantaged groups" and participation in Advanced Placement courses. The magazine described the complex evaluation process to select the schools: "The 2008 U.S. News & World Report America's Best High Schools methodology … is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes that show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators." The three-step school evaluation process first determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in their state. Looking at reading and math test results in the state's high school tests, researchers then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to findwhich schools were performing better than their statistical expectations. The second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low-income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state, and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average. The final step factored in how many students took Advance Placement (AP) courses and how well they scored in those courses. AP is a College Board program that offers college-level courses at high schools across the country. Only seven schools in this part of Georgia were on the list, including Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School in Augusta, which was in the top 100.
Echols says that he hopes the national attention drawn to Washington Wilkes will attract businesses that will employ more parents of school-age children to reverse the decline in student population.
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