North Hollywood High School Ranks in Top 1% in College Prep, Principal Says 'I'm Not Satisfied'

North Hollywood High School Huskies Mural. Photo by raultiojr66 via Flickr.

North Hollywood High School recently garnered national attention when it received a Washington Post nod ranking it in the top one percent of schools prepping its students for college. There's no doubt that the school's Highly Gifted Magnet program helped land it at such an honorable ranking. But this esteemed recognition is not enough for Principal Randall Delling, an ambitious man with major expectations.

Students are scoring with a rating of over 750 on California Standardized tests this year; one that is up 40 points from last year. Almost 40 percent of Hollywood High School's students excel into college. When students return to school on Wednesday, they better be ready to hit the books harder than ever.

These victories do not cut it for Principal Delling. "I'm not satisfied," he said, reports Huffington Post. "We need another 43 points" on the standardized tests."

The former drill sergeant rides a Harley Davidson hog and "hates to fail." You heard him, Huskies. "Another 43 points..."

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By Lauren Lloyd in News on September 12, 2011 12:20 PM

Comments [rss]

Ezra Horne

Whenever I see someone being successful as an educator, I wonder why we still can't figure out how to implement their practices on a wider scale.

janeylicious

I really doubt the school would rank *anywhere* near as high as they did without the HGM, which I attended several years ago. The rate of kids in the HGM going to college is probably higher than 95%, not to mention the kinds of test scores and tests we were taking were unusual if not unheard of for your typical public school (2000+ SAT scores, dozens of APs). A few hundred kids like that in a high school of a few thousand is going to skew the numbers no matter how you look at it.

That being said, I think that his ability to raise test scores in the school as a whole is pretty cool, and I'd love to see him get more funding to implement his ideas and to help him attempt to try to talk sense into educators and policymakers state and nationwide. Standardized tests being shoved down throats and one-size-fits-all really don't work, and having no funding makes the situation much worse. The HGM was spoiled in that respect: we have our own dedicated teachers, and families and alumni of the program chip in to buy things like new textbooks and resources where the school and district couldn't do much. Scaling and scarce resources are probably really big hurdles to overcome, but we have to start somewhere, right?