Let's just hope that Creg Williams doesn't move forward on his talk of boosting enrollment at Metro.

[Posted by Michael Allen on Mon., May 1, 2006 at 2:32 PM]

I'm with you on that one, Michael.

I'm glad to see Susan Turk fighting the good fight on this one, even if I don't always agree with her on other things.

The key to making Metro work is keeping it small and close-knit. Now, if you want to try and duplicate the small-school model elsewhere, great; but don't just try to cram more students into a building that was designed to be small for a reason!

[Posted by Joe Frank on Mon., May 1, 2006 at 3:07 PM]

That's great, but... it's only based on number of AP/IB classes taken, which is a pretty simple way of classifying things. And I'm not bitter - my school was ranked #18, but let's keep things in perspective.

[Posted by Jeff on Tue., May 2, 2006 at 3:23 PM]

What is the enrollment at Metro? It wasn't listed on the link, or I didn't see it. Small, selective schools will excel at a measure like the one above.

Schools that have to take everyone who lives in a geographic area, like Ladue, are not going to do so well.

A shining star like Metro should be publicized, but the statistics around it can be accurate but misleading concerning the slps as a whole.

[Posted by Butler Miller on Wed., May 3, 2006 at 8:49 AM]

Ladue has to take everyone who can afford to live in Ladue, a rather cherry-picked group.

Percentage of Ladue students receiving federally subsidized meals: 8%
Percentage of Metro students receiving federally subsidized meals: 31.3%

[Posted by Brian Marston on Wed., May 3, 2006 at 11:39 AM]

After some checking, I found that Metro has 232 students and Horton Watkins, Ladue High School, has 1083, more than four times as many.

Metro does much better on the MAP tests than Ladue. However it should be remembered that Metro, a magnet, has a competitive application process, which most public schools do not. It may be competitive for the parents to afford to live in a district, but not for the students to gain admittance to the school.

Parents and students should be proud of Metro. They serve their student population, albeit small, very well.

[Posted by Butler Miller on Wed., May 3, 2006 at 5:08 PM]

The comment about everyone who can afford to live "in Ladue" should have actually been "in the Ladue District". This District also includes Olivette and other less affluent areas. Additionally, many residents who do live in Ladue send their children to private schools, not the public high school, further altering the "cherry picked" student body. Plus, unlike Metro, there probably aren't politically connected people trying to exert pressure on anyone in a competition to get their child into Ladue High.

[Posted by Adric on Thu., May 4, 2006 at 10:20 PM]

It should be noted that Ladue was among the first school districts to pull out of accepting new students in the Voluntary Transfer (deseg) program.

[Posted by Joe Frank on Wed., May 31, 2006 at 4:10 PM]