The High School Journal

This article addresses the over-reliance on numerical data primarily in the form of test scores and argues that they are inadequate as sole sources of information about high schools. While the numbers may help to identify standards of excellence, they do little to raise awareness about the serious and constraining inequities that exist within and across high schools. Defining data more broadly and including varied sources and multiple voices in the conversation about high schools is offered as an alternative and used as a strategy in this article. Four high school students from New Orleans that attend Houston high schools were interviewed to capture their perspectives about the high schools in both New Orleans and in Houston.