The Blue Ribbon Schools Program is a United States government

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

 program created in 1981 to honor schools which have achieved high levels of performance or significant improvements with emphasis on schools serving disadvantaged students. The program centers around a self-assessment conducted by the school followed by an establishment and implementation of an improvement plan. The Blue Ribbon award is considered the highest honor an American school can achieve.

History

Established in 1982 by Secretary of Education

United States Secretary of Education

The United States Secretary of Education is the head of the Department of Education. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet, and 16th in line of United States presidential line of succession...

 Terrel Bell

Terrel Bell

Terrel Howard Bell was the Secretary of Education in the Cabinet of President Ronald Reagan.-Early life and career:...

, the program first honored only secondary schools, and was expanded to include primary schools. It was then changed again to honor secondary schools and primary schools in alternate years. During its first 25 years of existence, from its inception in 1982 through the 2006 award year, the Blue Ribbon Schools Program has been awarded approximately 5,600 times. 5,200 different schools have been recognized, reflecting those schools that have been selected two or more times. There are over 133,000 public, charter, private and parochial schools serving grades K-12 that are eligible for the award.

Many have won the award multiple times, including four-time winners Catholic High School

Catholic High School (Baton Rouge)

Catholic High School is an all-male Catholic college-preparatory school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, run by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. It offers grades eight through twelve.-Awards and recognition:...

 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...

 (88-89, 92-93, 97-98, 03-04), Crocker Middle School

Crocker Middle School

William H. Crocker Middle School is a public middle school located in Hillsborough, California, a suburb about south of San Francisco, as part of the Hillsborough City School District. Other schools in this district include South, North and West Elementary Schools...

 in Hillsborough, California

Hillsborough, California

Hillsborough is an incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hillsborough is one of the wealthiest communities in America and has the highest income of places in the United States with populations of at least 10,000...

 (82-83, 88-89, 94-96, 04-05) Spartanburg High School

Spartanburg High School

Spartanburg High School is part of Spartanburg County School District No. 7. The current principal is Jeff Stevens, a former assistant principal at the school.-Layout:...

 in Spartanburg, South Carolina

Spartanburg, South Carolina

thgSpartanburg is the largest city in and the county seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. It is the second-largest city of the three primary cities in the Upstate region of South Carolina, and is located northwest of Columbia, west of Charlotte, and about northeast of...

 (82-83, 88-89, 92-93, 97-98), Stevenson High School

Adlai E. Stevenson High School (Lincolnshire, Illinois)

Adlai E. Stevenson High School , commonly called Stevenson High School , is a public four-year high school located 3/4 of a mile west of the corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Half Day Road in Lincolnshire, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, serving Lincolnshire, Long Grove, larger portions of...

 in Lincolnshire, Illinois

Lincolnshire, Illinois

Lincolnshire is a village in the Vernon Township region of Lake County, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The village is a suburb of Chicago, a city in the adjacent Cook County. Its population was 6,108 at the time of the 2000 census. Lincolnshire was incorporated on August 5, 1957, from the...

 (86-87, 90-91, 97-98, 01-02), Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, Illinois

Mundelein, Illinois

Mundelein is a village in Lake County, Illinois, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the village population was 31,064.-History:The community now known as Mundelein has been inhabited since at least 1650, when the Potowatami Indians were known to have been trading with French fur traders....

 (84-85, 94-96, 01-02, 07-08), Holy Names Academy

Holy Names Academy

Holy Names Academy is a Catholic private all-girls college-preparatory high school located on the east slope of Seattle's Capitol Hill at 21st Avenue East between E. Aloha and E. Roy Streets. Located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle, the school has been named a Blue Ribbon School by...

 in Seattle, Washington (84-85, 90-91, 94-96, 01-02) and Edison Computech Middle School (90-91, 94-96, 01-02, 08-09).

States, territories, the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Bureau of Indian Affairs

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...

, and the Department of Defense Education Activity

Department of Defense Education Activity

The Department of Defense Education Activity is a civilian agency of the United States Department of Defense that manages all schools for military children and teenagers, as well as foreign service children and teenagers, in the United States and also overseas at American military bases worldwide...

 schools have joined the competition over the years. Special emphases have changed from year to year based on national priorities.

Criteria

To be selected for recognition, a school conducts a self-evaluation—a process that allows teachers, students, parents and community representatives to assess their strengths and weaknesses and develop strategic plans for the future. The school then submits a written application, including information on its progress toward achieving the National Education Goals. A review panel selects what they consider the most promising schools for site visits by experienced educators who submit reports on their findings. The review panel considers the reports and makes recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Education, who announces the schools selected for recognition.

Eligible schools must have been in existence for five years and cannot have received the award within the five prior years.

Criticism

David W. Kirkpatrick, the Senior Education Fellow at the US Freedom Foundation, noted in an editorial titled, "Awarding Blue Ribbons: Recognizing Schools or Students?" that criteria for the awards do not take into account the socioeconomic status of the students and that studies show that students who come from homes with higher income and better educated parents do better than students without these advantages by virtue of their backgrounds. Thus, the award is usually given to schools with students from wealthy backgrounds. As evidence to support his case, he pointed to the distribution of awards given in Pennsylvania one year; of eight schools receiving the award, only one was in a district whose income level was near the state average, and the rest went to districts with above average income, including two in the wealthiest community in the state.

Kirkpatrick proposed an alternative to recognizing "blue ribbon students"; he wrote, "Thus a more accurate indication of a good school would be one that adjusts for such socioeconomic factors and identifies those in which students do better than would normally be expected, based on their backgrounds."

From the program's inception through 2003, schools were permitted to nominate themselves. As of 2003 nominations are handled through a state liaison which schools must contact for nomination.

The program has also been criticized for assessment of schools coming from the school itself rather than an independent 3rd party and a nomination and assessment process that favors schools with the know-how and resources to complete the review assessment.

External links

• No Child Left Behind - Blue Ribbon Schools Program (Official Site)
  • "Blue Ribbon Schools" - Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige
    Rod Paige
    Roderick Raynor "Rod" Paige served as the 7th United States Secretary of Education from 2001 to 2005. Paige, who grew up in Mississippi, built a career on a belief that education equalizes opportunity, moving from classroom teacher to college dean and school superintendent to be the first African...
    
     October, 2001 (source: US Department of Education)
  • Blue Ribbon Schools 1982-2002
  • Blue Ribbon Schools 2003-2010 (updated annually)