Lisa Watts: NCSSM not ‘too elite’ for recognition

Your April 19 news brief “Raleigh Charter tops list” was misleading.

Raleigh Charter High School is indeed our state’s high school on The Washington Post’s list of most challenging high schools, ranked 125th of nearly 2,300. But the Post consistently lists North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham as one of 24 top-performing schools nationally.

Your story noted, “some schools such as the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics were excluded from the list because they’re considered too elite.” NCSSM accepts students from across the state and from every socioeconomic level, as opposed to drawing students from one concentrated, wealthy area.

The language that the Post uses to recognize NCSSM is as a “top-performing” high school with “elite students,” a subtle but important difference. A school where a whopping 77 seniors were named National Merit Finalists last year and whose students consistently earn top scholarships including the Benjamin N. Duke, Park and Morehead-Cain full scholarships, seems worthy of more than a passing note of being considered “too elite.”

This story was originally published April 26, 2016 at 5:23 PM with the headline "Lisa Watts: NCSSM not ‘too elite’ for recognition."