Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the America's Best High Schools project?
2. Why did U.S.News & World Report and School Evaluation Services create this report?
3. What methodology was used to identify America's Best High Schools?
4. What distinguishes a gold high school from a silver, bronze, or honorable mention high school?
5. Were there changes to the methodology used in the 2009 America's Best High Schools rankings?
6. Why was the honorable mention designation added to the 2009 America's Best High Schools rankings?
7. Why did schools change rankings in this year's America's Best High Schools rankings compared to those of a year ago?
8. How can one find out how a high school ranked in last year's rankings?
9. How were schools evaluated? What data and/or indicators were used to identify the high schools?
10. Who created the methodology?
11. Was every high school in the United States evaluated?
12. Which states did not have sufficient data available for analysis?
13. How will this report benefit the public?
14. Do the "best" high schools receive a reward?
15. Will this be an annual report?
16. Where can readers get more information?
17. Who can I contact if I have questions?

1. What is the America's Best High Schools project?
U.S.News & World Report teamed with analysts from School Evaluation Services to develop an innovative methodology that allowed us to analyze how well high schools serve all students, not just those that perform at the top of their class.

The America's Best High Schools project identifies the country's top-performing high schools.

The goal is to provide a clear, unbiased picture of how well public schools serve all of their students—from the highest achieving to the lowest achieving—in preparing them to demonstrate proficiency in basic skills as well as readiness for college-level work.

The first-ever list of America's Best High Schools is the 2008 edition, which was posted online Nov. 30, 2007. The 2009 edition was posted online on Dec. 5, 2008.
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2. Why did U.S.News & World Report and School Evaluation Services create this report?
Since U.S.News & World Report editors believe high schools are among America's most important institutions, adding America's Best High Schools to its "America's Best" series was a natural progression.

U.S.News & World Report, the nation's leading source of news analysis and service journalism, started its signature "America's Best" franchise, beginning with its annual rankings of American colleges and universities, in 1983. U.S. News also publishes America's Best Graduate Schools, America's Best Hospitals, America's Best Children's Hospitals, America's Best Health Plans, America's Best Leaders, and America's Best Places to Retire.

Early in 2007, U.S. News began its collaboration with School Evaluation Services to develop the methodology used to identify the schools. With more than a quarter century experience in gathering and analyzing a complex set of education-related data to create the college and graduate school rankings, U.S. News brought much to the table. Joining forces with School

Evaluation Services rounded out U.S. News's experience with an organization experienced in the K-12 arena.

Since 2001, School Evaluation Services has served as an independent, analytical resource for parents of school-age children; state and national policymakers; and educators. Today, it provides parents with the largest easily searchable collection of public school data ever assembled on schoolmatters.com.
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3. What methodology was used to identify America's Best High Schools?
The methodology for identifying America's Best High Schools was developed with a core principle in mind—that the best high schools must serve all students well and must produce measurable academic outcomes that support this mission. The methodology was developed by School Evaluation Services.

According to the methodology, a best high school is one that succeeds at the following:

Step 1. Attains performance levels that exceed statistical expectations given the school's relative level of student poverty, as measured by state accountability test scores for all the school's students in the core subjects of reading and math;

Step 2. Achieves proficiency rates on state tests for its least advantaged student groups (e.g., black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students) that exceed state averages; and

Step 3. Prepares its students for college, as measured by student participation in and performance on Advanced Placement (AP) exams and/or International Baccalaureate (IB) exams.
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4. What distinguishes a gold high school from a silver, bronze, or honorable mention high school?
There are three groups:

• The first includes top-performing high schools (gold and silver distinctions), which are schools that met all three criteria outlined above.
• The second includes schools that met state test performance criteria but have not yet demonstrated high levels of measurable college readiness. These schools received the bronze distinction.
• The third group recognizes schools that merit honorable mention. These were schools that achieved high levels of college readiness but only partially met state test performance criteria.

The top-performing high schools have been subdivided into two groups—gold and silver—based on their college readiness index, which measures the degree to which students are exposed to and master some college-level material while in high school. The gold high schools are the top 100 high schools in the country, ranked numerically according to their college readiness index, while the silver high schools are the remaining of the top-performing high schools identified nationwide. The Top 100 rankings are determined by using the  unrounded college readiness index which meant that there were no ties in the Top 100 rankings. 

A bronze high school is one that met the first two criteria of the methodology but not the third. These schools have demonstrated commendable performance on state tests but did not perform well enough on the college readiness index to merit identification as a top-performing high school. Either they have not provided as much access to college-level coursework as their top-performing peers or they offer an alternative program to AP or IB. While AP and IB are the two best-known college-level programs in the country, there are schools that focus on providing students with access to alternative college-level programs, typically in the form of dual enrollment at local community colleges. At present, there is no uniform set of data collected about participation in such programs. In addition, researchers have found that the quality of such existing programs varies significantly from school to school.

An honorable mention school is one that may have done a particularly good job of preparing students for college, but it was not able to meet the state test performance criteria. Had these schools met the state test criteria, their college readiness performance would have placed them among the top 100 schools nationwide (gold level status).
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5. Were there changes to the methodology used in the 2009 America's Best High Schools rankings?
In the calculation of this year's college readiness index, we included the participation in and performance on the International Baccalaureate (IB) exams, which were not part of last year's methodology. IB exams and the IB curriculum are increasingly offered at many high schools in the United States, and many colleges in the United States grant credit to incoming students for high scores on certain IB courses, just as they do with certain Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Therefore, while not as widely offered as AP, IB is universally considered college-level curriculum. We felt it was important to add to the rankings methodology since some high schools offer an extensive IB curriculum and their college readiness index was being understated without including IB. U.S. News and School Evaluation Services worked with IB to get school level data. (AP participation and performance continue to be part of the college readiness index calculation.)
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6. Why was the honorable mention designation added to the 2009 America's Best High Schools rankings?
Seventeen high schools in nine states received an honorable mention award this year because they would have scored high enough on the college readiness index to earn a gold medal but didn't fully meet the first two criteria of the methodology.

An honorable mention school is one that may have done a particularly good job of preparing students for college but was not able to meet the state test performance criteria. Had these schools met the state test criteria, their college readiness performance would have placed them among the top 100 schools nationwide (gold level status). We thought it was important that schools with such high levels of college readiness receive some kind of recognition while at the same time maintaining the rigorous standards embedded in the methodology to keep these schools separate from the medal winners.
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7. Why did schools change rankings in this year's America's Best High Schools rankings compared to those of a year ago?
There are a number of possible reasons why high schools moved up, down, or were no longer included on this year's America's Best High Schools rankings published Dec. 5, 2008.

a. The inclusion of International Baccalaureate data. Many schools have improved because of the inclusion this year of IB performance and participation data, which was unavailable for last year's list. Indeed, some schools that offer only IB have improved from bronze medal status last year to silver or gold status this year because of the inclusion of their IB results.

b. Changes in relative performance on state tests. Some schools fell off the list altogether because they are no longer among the best performing schools on their statewide tests, specifically whether their overall student performance on state tests exceeds statistical expectations (step 1) or their least advantaged students' performance is not as good as the state average (step 2). Without successfully meeting both of these state test-focused steps, schools are not eligible for any medal recognition, although they are still evaluated independently on their college readiness to determine whether they merit honorable mention.

c. Changes in relative or absolute performance on college-level coursework. Some schools may have changed ranks either up or down because of how the performance and participation of their 2006-07 class cohort on AP and/or IB exams compares with the performance of the 2005-06 class cohort. The determination of college readiness is based upon the performance and participation of 12th graders from the graduating class cohort in the most recent academic year (i.e., whether or not these students took—and passed—any AP or IB exams during their years at the school, up to and including their senior year). Many schools have experienced a change in their status, from as little as a few places in the gold medal rankings of the top 100 high schools to as much as changes in medal status itself (gold to silver, silver to bronze, bronze to gold, bronze to silver, etc.) because of changes in their college readiness.
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8. How can one find out how a high school ranked in last year's rankings?
These three PDF files contain the rankings from last year:

• Click here to see last year's gold medal schools
• Click here to see last year's silver medal schools
• Click here to see last year's bronze medal schools
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9. How were schools evaluated? What data and/or indicators were used to identify the high schools?
Analysts from School Evaluation Services looked at several indicators to determine which schools met the tiered criteria as outlined in the methodology. These indicators include:

Overall performance of students on state tests

State Test Performance Index—All Students
An index that measures the mastery of state tests, with full credit awarded to proficient scores, additional credit awarded to more advanced scores, and partial credit awarded to scores approaching proficient.

Economically Disadvantaged Students (% of Total Enrollment)
A measure of student poverty (typically % receiving free or reduced-price lunch).

Risk-Adjusted Performance Index
An index that measures the effective "distance" from statistically expected performance, based on the statistical relationship between student poverty and the performance index in this state. Only index values of 1 or greater meet the criteria for selection.

Performance of the least advantaged students on state tests

Disadvantaged Students State Test Proficiency Rate
An index that measures the aggregate proficiency rate of a school's black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students. Under NCLB, this rate must reach 100% by 2014, when all students are expected to demonstrate proficiency in reading and math.

Disadvantaged Students Performance Gap Differential
The differential between a school's disadvantaged student performance index and the state average for that index. Only values greater than zero meet the criteria for selection.

Nondisadvantaged Students State Test Proficiency Rate
An index that measures the aggregate proficiency rate of a school's most nondisadvantaged students (white and noneconomically disadvantaged students). As mentioned above, under NCLB, this rate must reach 100% by 2014, when all students are expected to demonstrate proficiency in reading and math. This is provided for additional context, to draw some attention to the within-school achievement gap, which for many of the top-performing high schools, as with most of the nation's schools, remains an area with room for progress.

Current State Test Achievement Gap (Nondisadvantaged vs. Disadvantaged Students)
The achievement gap measures the difference between the performance index achieved by nondisadvantaged and disadvantaged students in the school—provided for context to focus special attention on the issue of achievement gaps.
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Performance on college-level Advanced Placement (AP) exams or International Baccalaureate (IB) exams

AP/IB Participation (%)
The percentage of 12th graders who took at least one AP and/or IB exam at some point during high school (number of students tested divided by number of 12th graders enrolled).

Quality-Adjusted AP/IB Participation (%)
The percentage of 12th graders that took and passed at least one AP and/or IB exam at some point during high school (number of students tested that received at least one score of 3 or higher on AP and/or 4 or higher on IB divided by number of 12th graders enrolled).

College Readiness Index
An index that measures the degree to which a school's students are exposed to, and master, some college-level material (a weighted average of AP/IB participation and the quality-adjusted AP/IB participation rates, with 75% of the weight placed on the quality-adjusted rate and 25% placed on the simple rate). Only values greater than 20 meet the criteria for selection. Gold high schools are simply the top 100 high schools that meet these criteria, ranked using this index.

Exams Per Test Taker
A measure of the depth of AP/IB participation (the degree to which a school's students are exposed to more than one AP/IB subject), provided for additional context (the number of exams taken divided by the number of test takers equals the average number of exams per test taker).

Quality-Adjusted Exams Per Test Taker
A quality-adjusted version of the above indicator, focusing solely on the number of exams that receive passing scores and the students that took them (the number of exams scoring 3 or above on AP or 4 or above on IB divided by the number of students scoring 3 or above on at least one AP exam, or 4 or above on at least one IB exam). Also provided for contextual value and used as a secondary ranking for the gold high schools (serving as a "tie-breaker" for schools with identical college readiness index values).
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10. Who created the methodology?
The methodology was developed by School Evaluation Services in collaboration with Andrew Rotherham, cofounder of Education Sector and writer of Eduwonk.com. School Evaluation

Services has been developing methods over the past several years to identify high-performing schools and school districts by going beyond simplistic rankings of test scores to instead consider the challenges that schools face in educating "at-risk" students. Over the past several years, School Evaluation Services has published lists of outperforming school districts and schools that are narrowing the achievement gap for the majority of states nationwide.

School Evaluation Services analysts developed the resulting methodology in consultation with analysts from Education Sector. The principal authors are:

Paul Gazzerro, director of analytical criteria at School Evaluation Services, where he has served as a principal author of analytical methods and published studies of high-performing schools and districts. Prior to joining School Evaluation Services in 2000, Gazzerro spent several years working in education reform efforts in Chicago.

Andrew J. Rotherham, cofounder of Education Sector, author of the blog Eduwonk.com, and a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute.
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11. Was every high school in the United States evaluated?
School Evaluation Services collected state test data from state departments of education. At this time, 48 states had sufficient data to be analyzed. More than 21,000 high schools were included in the analysis.
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12. Which states did not have sufficient data available for analysis?
The states of Nebraska and Oklahoma, as well as the District of Columbia, did not have sufficient state test data available for analysis. Schools in these states were, however, evaluated for honorable mention, but none of the schools met the criteria for recognition.
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13. How will this report benefit the public?
Education drives our country's future. Recognizing schools that are performing well and providing them as models to other schools will inspire educators and communities to do better. Also, by sharing this information, parents across the country will be armed with information to help them make better-informed decisions about their child's education.
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14. Do the "best" high schools receive a reward?
No monetary reward is associated with being named one of America's Best High Schools, but schools will be mentioned in both the online and print versions of U.S.News & World Report. Each school will also have the distinction of being named one of the first America's Best High Schools.
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15. Will this be an annual report?
Yes. U.S. News plans to publish America's Best High Schools annually. The second edition of America's Best High Schools will be available online through most of 2009 at usnews.com/highschools.

The first-ever list of America's Best High Schools was the 2008 edition, which was posted online Nov. 30, 2007.
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16. Where can readers get more information?
To access America's Best High Schools, visit usnews.com/highschools. To research schools in your neighborhood, visit schoolmatters.com.
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17. Who can I contact if I have questions?
If you are a high school or school district official or administrator with specific questions about your ranking, the accuracy of the data, or why your school was ranked as it was, E-mail letters@usnews.com. Please include details about the high school, including city, state, and county, your title, and E-mail address. Please limit inquiries to one official representative per school or district.
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