But the superintendent of one of those districts said the magazine applied "faulty data" that may have ranked it too high at 99. "The data just doesn't seem to jive with what we have," said Dover's Superintendent James McLaughlin. "I don't want to take any honors that may be based on bad data." McLaughlin, who took the post in 2019, said the magazine's 2021 report, based on 2018-19 school-year data, indicated the district had 52% of students take at least one AP exam that year. "But that's not correct," he said. "Based on our data, we had 23% of the kids take it." U.S. News & World Report spokeswoman Madeline Smanik responded to inquiries about the error and said its staff "receives AP data directly from the College Board."