Valga High School ranked 82nd among the 112 schools included in this year's rankings — down one spot from last year. Principal Andrus Murumaa noted that this year's calculations did not take the English exam results of 31 students into account.

He noted that the more important issue, however, is the broader picture. "This kind of focusing on statistics and numbers won't get us anywhere," Murumaa said.

"If we want, we can talk about the success stories; if we want, we can highlight who has managed well in the future," he continued. "But we shouldn't be ranking them. When schools are ranked, the average person doesn't see the work behind [a ranking], the circumstances behind it, or what students and teachers have contributed. And what is our bottom line to young people and parents — should they just run headlong to the big cities, and pass up the fantastic opportunity to get an education in their hometown, and in a good environment, provided they have the desire and drive to do so?"

Loksa High School was not included in last year's rankings because fewer than five students took either the Estonian language or Estonian as a second language state exam. In such cases, Harno does not publish results in order to protect students' personal data, meaning that no average score can be calculated for the ranking.

This year, the eastern Harju County high school was ranked 104th overall — a disappointing surprise for the school community — despite exam results exceeding the Estonian average.

According to principal Argo Aug, the issue isn't formulas or numbers; the issue is the image presented to the public.

"We had to explain to parents in our community that we aren't doing a bad job at all, and that the results used by the nationwide press were miscalculated," Aug said. "It's sad that publishing such news simply erodes parents' trust in us, which isn't fair."

Aarne Seppel, an editor at Postimees, stated that the newspaper compiles these rankings because their readers expect and need them.

"There must be some way for people to be able to evaluate schools," Seppel said.

"Of course we could use different criteria as the basis for the rankings, but state exams are one of those things that nearly everyone sees eye to eye on," the editor explained. "We've also always said that we don't claim to offer the absolute truth, but we'll definitely figure out for next year how to differentiate between schools in cases like this so that it doesn't give the impression that [these smaller schools] are on equal footing with larger schools."

Kersti Kõiv, director of Harno's Analysis and Development Center, considers it important for data about schools to be public, but noted that it's essential to compare as many different metrics as possible in order to make any meaningful statements about a given school.

"For example, we have annual satisfaction surveys that provide very diverse information about schools, and it's certainly important to look at trends over time," Kõiv noted. "All sorts of rankings tend to lead to a lot of misinterpretation, and very often they are based on just one indicator, which doesn't provide a comprehensive overview of a school's success. That is why we don't find it necessary to publish rankings."

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