The 100 Best High Schools in America

MSNBC reports There are now 27,468 public high schools. Assessing such a diverse group is daunting. Newsweek's Best High Schools List uses a ratio, the number of Advanced Placement (AP) and/or International Baccalaureate (IB) tests taken by all students at a school in 2004, divided by the number of graduating seniors. Although that doesn't tell the whole story about a school, it's one of the best measures available to compare a wide range of students' readiness for higher-level work, which is more crucial than ever in the postindustrial age. A generation ago, a high-school diploma gave most workers all they needed to get good jobs, says Larry Rosenstock, CEO of High Tech High in San Diego. "Now a high-school degree doesn't make it as a final, terminal degree. There's been a push to get people to seek further education."

The effort to produce a well-trained work force has to begin long before high school. "The single most important way to improve high schools is to improve elementary and junior high schools," says education historian Diane Ravitch of New York University. "If a student arrived in ninth grade ready for instruction in math, science, history, literature and foreign languages, then no further reform is needed." But with reform of the early grades underway for more than a decade, looking at high school now is a "natural progression," says Tom Vander Ark, education director of the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, which started focusing on secondary education three years ago. "It felt like a very large problem that wasn't getting sufficient attention," he says.

No one hopes for success more than the graduates of English High. Georgette Travis, class of '84 and now a staff assistant at the school, says 1,300 students in grades 9 to 12 is a strain on everyone. Budget cuts have meant losing highly regarded art and music programs, and the library desperately needs updating. The headmaster does his best, Travis says, but it's a constant struggle. Without some help, schools like English will continue to struggle if they want to crack the top 100.

Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa is 58th on the list and Classen School of Advanced Studies in Oklahoma City is 81st on the list.

joannej blogged Newsweek's 100 Best High Schools in America have the most students taking Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams. The list, which actually goes up to 1,000, includes the percentage of students eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch, the standard measure of poverty. The numbers of very low for most schools on the list but there are exceptions. Pensacola High in Florida has a 63 percent subsidized lunch rate yet ranks 8th. (But it gets only a "D" grade from the state of Florida.) Like many of the high-ranking schools with fairly high poverty rates, Pensacola has an IB program. Mills University Studies in Little Rock is the highest ranking non-IB and non-magnet school with half the students in poverty: It has a special honors program that prepares students for AP courses. Again, test scores aren't all that impressive for the average student.

Orin Kerr blogged Annoyed that U.S. News & World Report has cornered the market on college and graduate school rankings, Newsweek has countered with its ranking of the top high schools. (They did this in 2003, too.) Next up: Time Magazine rankings of the best kindergarten programs.