U.S. News & World Report is probably most well-known for its rankings of colleges and universities.

It’s a rather fragile system for ranking. Malcolm Gladwell in his latest season of the podcast Revisionist History deals with the parameters and variables used in the ranking system and shows its drastic shortcomings. Whether you agree with Gladwell’s approaches or conclusions in his other works, it is worth a listen to the episodes on the college/university rankings as they clearly show many subjective inconsistencies in ranking schools.

U.S. News then started ranking America’s high schools. Many dubious measurements were used there as well to come up with rankings which many who do not totally understand how effective schools really are based on the clientele they serve simply take as gospel.

Now they are ranking elementary and middle schools…

…in the name of school choice.

Then understand that there is so much more to a school. Maybe perhaps go to this site (Neighborhood Atlas) and catch a glimpse of the socio-economics that affect schools that are never really considered in the U.S. News rankings.