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U.S. News & World Report: Best High Schools in 2017

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T

Tripon

Member
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings

The U.S. News rankings include data on more than 22,000 public high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Schools were awarded gold, silver or bronze medals based on their performance on state assessments and how well they prepare students for college.
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STEP 1 | Students perform better than expected in their state.
We looked at reading and math results for students on each state's proficiency tests and then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, who tend to score lower.

STEP 2 | Disadvantaged students perform better than state average.
We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students - black, Hispanic and low-income - with the statewide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than their state averages.

STEP 3 | Student graduation rates meet or exceed a national standard
We excluded schools from consideration if their graduation rates were lower than 75 percent - a threshold that is higher than a federal law that requires states to give extra resources to schools below 67 percent.

STEP 4 | Students are prepared for college-level coursework.
We calculated a College Readiness Index, which is based on the school's AP participation rate and how well the students did on those tests. Tiebeakers were used to determine ranks of schools that achieved the same College Readiness Index.
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These awards do get get bandied about in press releases and sites like greatschools.org. They don't mean anything, but I suppose it's fun to see where your old high school is at.

Disclaimer: I work for a school listed in the report. So don't take anything I say on face value I guess.
 
Grizzlyjin

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Hey, my school is in the Top 30. Yay
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
The statistical drop from 19 to 20, and the search string "BASIS" should not make you suspicious about this list, that organization, this methodology, or those cities and states. Everything seems fine. Just seems like apples to apples normality.
 
Goro Majima

Goro Majima

Kitty Genovese Member
Some of these don't exactly sound like public schools

So are private schools included? They say they surveyed public schools so I'm kinda confused
 
T

torre_avenue

Banned
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
What the fuck is BASIS and how are there so many top rated schools here in AZ that I've never once heard of?
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It's a private school system that's super fucking rigorous if what I see my sister go through is any indication. Very really, they put kids through the wringer, loading them with APs, but I'd imagine they produce ridiculously impressive kids as a result
 
N

nocturnalis

Member
My high school is top 175 in my state and top 1,000 nationally. Can we see old rankings so I can look at what it was when I went there?
 
C

catbird

Neo Member
I'm surprised with so much AZ. Didn't think they had a good school system there. My SO went to public schools in AZ, moved to NJ in HS and he always made it seem like that was a major quality jump. But, I guess there is a lot of variation within states as well.

Plus wtf is BASIS
 
O

Omadahl

Banned
RockmanBN said:
Not even ranked, but hey. It's Nebraska. Stuck here or pay more for college.


I feel ya, though I'm an Islander.
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Despite poor rankings, there are great programs and opportunities for most public schools here. I went to a local public high school, took honors and AP classes and was fine. I think the big difference is that these public schools serve everyone and a lot of these kids just get passed along until they drop out at 16 and go to jail. But hey, that's the American school system for you.
 
S

Septimus Prime

Member
torre_avenue said:
It's a private school system that's super fucking rigorous if what I see my sister go through is any indication. Very really, they put kids through the wringer, loading them with APs, but I'd imagine they produce ridiculously impressive kids as a result
Click to expand...
If that is the case, their 100% graduation rates sound incredibly suspect. Do they just drop the kids who don't meet their standards?
 
R

RockmanBN

Member
Omadahl said:
Despite poor rankings, there are great programs and opportunities for most public schools here. I went to a local public high school, took honors and AP classes and was fine. I think the big difference is that these public schools serve everyone and a lot of these kids just get passed along until they drop out at 16 and go to jail. But hey, that's the American school system for you.
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I agree. Most teachers were there to babysit and only the students who cared were separated from them because of AP classes.

The Susan Buffett Scholarship is amazing. May not be at the most prestigious schools, but not paying for it is nice if you can get the scholarship.
 
P

platakul

Banned
Septimus Prime said:
If that is the case, their 100% graduation rates sound incredibly suspect. Do they just drop the kids who don't meet their standards?
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Yeah those kids end up at local public schools all the time. Basically all students there are taking multiple AP classes every year so that the school can top lists like this
 
K

Kamek

Member
Top 50. Used to consistently be in the top 20. Had a spark when we started but now we're just garabge. Still have most nobel laureates than most countries tho 8]
 
S

SoRuffShoNuff

Member
I've been looking to purchase a home in the Atlanta area and it's amazing how much property values correlate to school rankings. My wife and I make almost 200k a year and the number of school districts on that list we can't afford to live in is the double digits.
 
D

Dyle

Member
Very surprised to see my high school ranked at only 46% college readiness. I haven't kept up since graduating, but we were always ranked in the top 20 schools in Illinois and have a 95% graduation rate with 88% passing AP tests that 51% took, but somehow only 29% math proficiency and 48% reading. That would imply that nearly the same amount of students that were proficient in reading passed an AP test. I don't see how that would work out, unless I'm misunderstanding the data.
 
M

Mortemis

Banned
Some of y'all talking about your school is ranked in the 1,000s, my shitty ass place aint even ranked.

11.9% in college readiness. Shit sounds a little too high tbh.
 
F

foppy79

Member
#2306 Represent!
I'm surprised we even made the list, and too be honest, I don't know if I want us there. Bunch of self-righteous bastards, we are.
 
J

JABEE

Member
Unranked

College Readiness 14.3%

Math Proficiency 12%

Economically Disadvantaged 40%

Minority Enrollment 43%
 
L

Linkura

Member
Unranked. But I thought I got a pretty good education. In fact, I was in a private school for my first year of high school, and left because I was unsatisfied with the academics. Went to the public school and didn't look back. Had some fantastic teachers, but I won't lie, the funding is shit. The town's school system actually has the lowest per pupil spending in the state, and it's generally a middle class town. People just don't want to spend the money on increasing property taxes because fuck the future, I guess. But even with the lowest per pupil spending in the state, the test scores are still in the middle of the pack. I credit that solely to the generally excellent teachers.

Ended up being in a special honors program at university limited to 30 students per year (6k total in my particular college) and graduated summa cum laude at one of the top schools in the country for my major. I think I did pretty well for myself.
 
T

thestopsign

Member
I think this is messed up... I went to what was considered the best public school in my state and it isn't even ranked. For some reason the math proficiency rating is at 20%. It was consistently the only school in Maine ranked in the Top 1000 when I was there just 5 years ago.

Edit: It was the top school in the state in 2015 and isn't ranked in the top 20 in 2016 for whatever reason.
 
S

Septimus Prime

Member
Dyle said:
Very surprised to see my high school ranked at only 46% college readiness. I haven't kept up since graduating, but we were always ranked in the top 20 schools in Illinois and have a 95% graduation rate with 88% passing AP tests that 51% took, but somehow only 29% math proficiency and 48% reading. That would imply that nearly the same amount of students that were proficient in reading passed an AP test. I don't see how that would work out, unless I'm misunderstanding the data.
Click to expand...
The college readiness score isn't presented as a percentage, so it seems to be some sort of composite "grade" based on various factors, including AP exam scores, I think.
 
T

The Driver

Member
Mine was ok for Texas. #116th here and 900 something nationally.

The other public schools of my ISD didn't fare too well tho.
 
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