I was looking at the US News & World Report High School Rankings and was very surprised to see the high school I went to in the top 5%. I won't say exactly where in the top 5%, but it was somewhere in there.

I'm not writing to brag about this. Most of my readers will go to high schools that are ranked higher than mine, based entirely on where they live. Instead, I'm writing this in dismay. This means more than 95% of high schools were ranked below my school. How can this be? I don't think there is anything special about my school. I coasted through without breaking much of a sweat, and most of my classmates did as well. It simply wasn't a difficult school. As one is able to surmise from my poor grammar and horrible spelling, somewhat helped by spell-check, I'd consider the education I was able to receive about average. Can 95% of public high schools really be worse than my school?

If this US News and World Report article is accurate, and my high school really should be ranked in the top 5%, when I consider it just a plain, ordinary, school, what does this mean for other schools? What does a school that ranks at the 50th percentile look like? What about those at the bottom of the barrel?

We often hear about studies conducted that show the USA is falling further and further behind other industrialized nations, especially in math an science. Well, if the top 5% ranking for my high school is correct, I can see why. But what is causing this problem? Is it the schools (e.g., large class sizes, low budgets, crumbling buildings, etc.)? Is it the students? Is it the teachers? Is it the administrators? Is it the parents? Is it the government? It's likely a combination of all these factors. But how do we fix it?