The Best High Schools Ranking Roundup

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Mornin`
This is one of the sweetest blog postings I have ever read. I hope to mean the world to someone one day to.

maxgxldealer of AL 8:28PM May 31, 2009

I don't know who did Hawaii, but they did a terrible job. My daughter's school has 25 National Merit qualifiers in her class alone. The HS has won the National Economic Challenge 8 out the last ten years and they play sports too. Well over 95% go to college. It's not Punahoe

Jesse of HI 10:29PM April 24, 2009

How is this schools ranked academicaly

Ronald Scott of TX 6:33PM April 01, 2009

I am looking for a ranking on the Taft School in Watertown, CT
From Bob Morse: Taft didn't make the list.

Mary Marinello of CT 3:54PM March 24, 2008

Where do I go to look at the entire list?

R. Kestner of NM 10:11AM February 22, 2008

I think this kind of analysis is important and should continue.
Are there any plans to perform similarly analyze parochial schools and perhaps produce a comparison?
Many inner cities have parochial high schools which draw their students from impoverished neighborhoods largely populated by minorities and many single parent families. The schools remained as population shifts occurred over the years.
Many of the students at these schools are there on scholarships and many others have their tuition wholly or partially waived, based upon the degree of financial need.
It would be interesting to see how well these kids stack up against those in public high schools.

August J. Byllott of FL 8:57PM December 27, 2007

The endeavor to rank high schools was an admirable one, but the methodology selected to determine these schools is questionable. To illustrate this, six out of the seven high schools in Washington County, Maryland were named to this list. This sounds quite impressive and would certainly have to rank this county as one of the top in the country if these results are indicative of the ability of schools “to provide a good education across their entire student body”. However, for the same time period of the study, Washington County scored below the state and national average in the SAT. Its passing rate for the Advanced Placement tests was also significantly lower that both the state and national averages. In addition, the percentage of Washington County students completing a college-prep level curriculum in high school was below the state average. Even more telling though is the report published by the Maryland Higher Education Commission which showed that Washington County students in college required more remedial coursework than the state average in all six of the measurable categories. These factors certainly don’t indicate that Washington County is among the best in Maryland let alone the best in the US.

Robert of MD 2:19PM December 13, 2007

I'm a teacher at Eastern Sierra Academy, a small rural school in a remote town in Eastern California. I've read your methodology for ranking "America's Best High Schools 2008" and I believe our school should be ranked quite high on your list.
We serve a community that is almost exclusively middle to low income and is about 40% Hispanic. We consistently rank among the top 50 schools (out of almost 1000) in the state with our API scores. We also have a robust AP program in place at the school. 100% of our seniors have taken at least 4 AP exams and our AP pass rate is usually between 75% and 40%.
For the 2005-2006 school year, 100% of our seniors had taken AP exams and 60% of them had passed at least one test. So if I take the formula you provided for "College Readiness" we have a score of 70.0. This would put us at #54 on your list of Gold Medal Schools.
If there is some way we be included on your list, our students and faculty would be very grateful for the recognition.

James Godoy of CA 11:22AM December 13, 2007

Why are Catholic High Schools not represented...?

Santa Fe Oldie of NM 2:46PM December 12, 2007

Having attended one of the high schools listed in the top 100, Brooklyn Technical High School, and having seen the lack of quality in the school work my 5 siblings were given at other Public and Parochial High Schools, I defintely feel that schools need to feel comfortable with competition. If a person has not attended a "highly competitive" high school, he/she will never understand the environment that exists. Visiting a school for a couple of days to do an evaluation does not necessarily present any insight into exactly how meaningful the education being provided can be.
I personally think our kids in public school don't need to hear parents, teachers and adminstrators complain about taking tests. We stress our kids out by our "fear of taking tests." My son attended Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. He was enrolled in the International Baccaleaurate Program and then he went on to score 1400+ on SAt's and attend and graduate from University of Chicago. He was not taught how to take a test. He was taught to read and learn as much as he could. He practiced taking tests on his own, but test taking was not a separate class using up valuable class time. If the schools
would stop teaching to the test and just focus on teaching the kids the skills they need the tests will take care of themselves.
Unfortunately, the "vibe" I pick up in a school is completely subjective to whatever my paradigm may be on that particular day. I would caution anyone who uses the "vibe" of the school and not test scores to evaluate whether or not they should send their kid to a school.
Test scores, % of kids who attend college and the breakdown of the colleges the kids go on to attend mean a great deal more to me because I know that some schools provide better education than others period.

Audrey of NY 11:27AM December 11, 2007