As you may know, I've been doing a project regarding diversity at Pine View. The key part of my project to increase diversity would be to modify the enrollment system in a way where every child is given an equal chance to apply. This means finding the key point in the current application process which results in a smaller pool of African American students passing than any other ethnicity. An article I read pointed out that in the current system at Pine View, only 1 in 50 black students pass compared to an average of 1 in 7 white students. This is what raised my doubt in the current system and it is what I believe may attribute to the diversification of Pine View if fixed correctly.
Another key realization I made was the fact that Pine View is not nearly the only school in the US who has this problem. Several of the nation's top filtered or "gifted" schools have issues with diversity. This is valuable information because being able to pinpoint common ground among all these schools would be crucial to identifying the root of the problem in our own community and how to solve it.
I also created a diversity scoring tool which compares the demographic percentages of minority groups in a school and compares them to the county. The closer the demographics of the school are to the county in the minority groups, the better the diversity score is. The score ranges between 0-100, however neither 0 nor 100 will ever truly be reached. Those numbers identify the ideal diversity where the demographics exactly match that of the county to the person. I will further explain the algorithm of this calculator in another article.
However this calculator is important in the process I took in organizing the list I created of the top 50 high schools in the nation, with a similar application process as Pine View, according to US News being ranked by my diversity grader. I have posted the chart below:
*Note: The scores in this table should be only taken to 2 significant figures and are only rough estimates using diversity data from Niche.com
Another key realization I made was the fact that Pine View is not nearly the only school in the US who has this problem. Several of the nation's top filtered or "gifted" schools have issues with diversity. This is valuable information because being able to pinpoint common ground among all these schools would be crucial to identifying the root of the problem in our own community and how to solve it.
I also created a diversity scoring tool which compares the demographic percentages of minority groups in a school and compares them to the county. The closer the demographics of the school are to the county in the minority groups, the better the diversity score is. The score ranges between 0-100, however neither 0 nor 100 will ever truly be reached. Those numbers identify the ideal diversity where the demographics exactly match that of the county to the person. I will further explain the algorithm of this calculator in another article.
However this calculator is important in the process I took in organizing the list I created of the top 50 high schools in the nation, with a similar application process as Pine View, according to US News being ranked by my diversity grader. I have posted the chart below:
| School Name | District/County of School | Ranking | US News Ranking | Diversity Score |
| Young Women's Preparatory Academy |
Miami-Dade
County Public Schools
|
1 | 52 | 96.60 |
| Jericho Senior High School | Jericho Union Free School District | 2 | 67 | 96.10 |
| School Without Walls High School | District Of Columbia Public Schools | 3 | 84 | 93.20 |
| Whitney High School | ABC Unified School District | 4 | 14 | 92.20 |
| Design and Architecture Senior High | Miami-Dade County Public Schools | 5 | 22 | 89.60 |
| Hawthorne Math and Science Academy | Hawthorne School District | 6 | 66 | 88.00 |
| University High School (Tolleson) | Tolleson Union High School District | 7 | 21 | 87.90 |
| Lowell High School | San Francisco Unified School District | 8 | 59 | 87.10 |
| Preuss School UCSD | San Diego Unified School District | 9 | 54 | 82.10 |
| Rye High School | Rye City School District | 10 | 90 | 80.90 |
| School of Science and Engineering | Dallas Independent School District | 11 | 9 | 79.90 |
| International Studies Preparatory Academy | Miami-Dade County Public Schools | 12 | 30 | 78.60 |
| International School | Bellevue School District | 13 | 41 | 78.60 |
| DSST: Stapleton High School | Denver Public Schools | 14 | 97 | 76.60 |
| Gilbert Classical Academy High School | Gilbert Unified District | 15 | 29 | 70.80 |
| Suncoast Community High School | School District of Palm Beach County | 16 | 53 | 70.50 |
| Booker T. Washington SPVA | Dallas Independent School District | 17 | 92 | 66.80 |
| Peak to Peak CHARTER School | Boulder Valley School District | 18 | 33 | 63.90 |
| Hume Fogg Magnet High School | Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools | 19 | 58 | 63.60 |
| University High School(Tucson) | Tucson Unified District | 20 | 15 | 63.50 |
| Walnut Hills High School | Cincinnati Public Schools | 21 | 47 | 63.30 |
| Dr. Ronald E McNair High School | Jersey City Public Schools | 22 | 49 | 63.30 |
| Alexander W. Dreyfoos Junior School of the Arts | School District of Palm Beach County | 23 | 78 | 62.50 |
| Benjamin Franklin High School | New Orleans Public Schools | 24 | 70 | 62.10 |
| Philip J. Weaver Ed Center | Guilford County Schools | 25 | 39 | 61.10 |
| Mission San Jose High | Fremont Unified | 26 | 76 | 61.00 |
| Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology | Gwinnett County | 27 | 34 | 60.00 |
| IDEA Frontier College Preparatory | IDEA Public Schools | 28 | 55 | 60.00 |
| Walter Payton College Preparatory High School | Chicago Public Schools | 29 | 64 | 60.00 |
| Edgewood Jr/Sr High School | Brevard Public Schools | 30 | 50 | 59.70 |
| Westshore Junior/Senior High School | Brevard Public Schools | 31 | 31 | 59.00 |
| Tesla STEM High School | Lake Washington School District | 32 | 28 | 57.30 |
| Carnegie Vanguard High School | Houston Independent School District | 33 | 8 | 56.90 |
| Northside College Preparatory High School | Chicago Public Schools | 34 | 40 | 54.50 |
| DeBakey High School for Health Professions | Houston Independent School District | 35 | 18 | 53.70 |
| Stanton College Preparatory School | Duval County Public Schools | 36 | 36 | 53.10 |
| School for the Talented and the Gifted | Dallas Independent School District | 37 | 4 | 49.80 |
| International Community School | Lake Washington School District | 38 | 80 | 49.70 |
| Julia R. Masterman Secondary School | School District of Philadelphia | 39 | 51 | 48.00 |
| Pine View School | Sarasota County Schools | 40 | 13 | 45.60 |
| Loveless Academic Magnet Program High School | Montgomery County | 41 | 57 | 43.60 |
| Boston Latin School | Boston Public Schools | 42 | 42 | 41.80 |
| Central Magnet School | Rutherford County | 43 | 37 | 40.30 |
| Oxford Academy | Anaheim Union High | 44 | 12 | 36.80 |
| Early College at Guilford | Guilford County Schools | 45 | 62 | 27.80 |
| Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology | Fairfax County Public Schools | 46 | 6 | 27.20 |
| Liberal Arts and Science Academy | Austin Independent School District | 47 | 27 | 23.90 |
| Academic Magnet High School | Charleston County School District | 48 | 11 | 20.70 |
| Bronx High School of Science | New York City Public Schools-District 10 | 49 | 46 | 17.40 |
| High Technology High School | Monmouth County Vocational School District | 50 | 16 | 6.50 |
*Note: The scores in this table should be only taken to 2 significant figures and are only rough estimates using diversity data from Niche.com
Although several of the schools on this list have a ranking on US News well above the top 50, the reason for this is that I had to actually take the top 100 high schools and identify 50 that had an application process similar to that of Pine View. This also led to the decision of removing all the New York City schools whose application process for their schools is very different from the Pine View. I will also attach the original document of the scores that all the top 100 got that I calculated with the scorer.
My plan after this is to separately explore the processes in applying to each of these schools much more thoroughly. Then, by comparing them al to one another, I will hopefully be able to find something that each of them share. This process will be for another article however. I encourage you to look out for it, because it will be critical in taking the next step towards a more diverse future for Pine View and possibly other schools facing the same problem around the nation.
Link to document of Top 100 ranked using diversity calculator:
https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuU8iPdfWb_dmXrgH7BY4POaWTkI
*Note: Many charter schools in the top 100 were not able to be scored due to not being able to find diversity data of their surrounding counties
Link to document of Top 100 ranked using diversity calculator:
https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuU8iPdfWb_dmXrgH7BY4POaWTkI
*Note: Many charter schools in the top 100 were not able to be scored due to not being able to find diversity data of their surrounding counties
-VCK
