Delano among state's best

Posted on: Aug 10, 2017

Delano Public Schools is among the top 10 school districts in Minnesota, according to recently released rankings from SchoolDigger.

The website calculated its rankings based on 2016-17 MCA-III scores in math, reading and science. After putting those results through a formula to determine a more comparison-friendly average standard score, the website ranked Delano No. 9 out of 441 Minnesota districts analyzed. The rankings were released on Monday, Aug. 7.

“I’m extremely proud of the work that our talented staff continues to do in educating all our students at Delano Public Schools,” said Superintendent Matt Schoen. “This is further evidence that we are continuing to strive for and achieve educational excellence, which is our foremost goal.”

Delano is in good company around the area. St. Michael-Albertville was the top district in Wright County, ranking No. 6. Neighboring districts Westonka and Orono ranked No. 8 and No. 10, respectively.

Other neighbors in the rankings included No. 65 Watertown-Mayer, No. 75 Rockford and No. 111 Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose.

This year’s ranking was a slight improvement for Delano, which was No. 12 last year. Delano schools have ranked in the top 3 percent of schools statewide since at least 2010, according to SchoolDigger’s criteria.

In information posted with this year’s rankings, the website acknowledged that using test scores alone to rank districts is a limited measure of success.

“We would be the first to argue that this is not the ultimate way to rank schools and that there are certainly many, many more criteria – objective and subjective – that add to, or subtract from, the overall quality of a school,” SchoolDigger said. “But we believe that listing schools by test scores is useful, and as a tool should be used by parents in conjunction with all the other criteria available.”

For complete results and further explanation of the methods used in the rankings, see www.schooldigger.com/go/MN/search.aspx.

Top 10 in Minnesota

1. St. Croix Preparatory Academy

2. Nova Classical Academy

3. Mahtomedi Public School District

4. Minnetonka Public School District

5. Esko Public School District

6. St. Michael-Albertville School District

7. Yinghua Academy

8. Westonka Public School District

9. Delano Public Schools

10. Orono Public School District