Newsweek's High School Rankings for 2014: Two Lists Are Better Than One
For more than a decade, Newsweek has published an annual
list of America’s Top High Schools, ranked primarily according to a ratio of
AP/IB exams to the number of students graduating. This year we’re doing things a
little differently.
With help from the research firm Westat, we present two separate
rankings: an absolute list and a relative list that we’re calling “America’s Top
High Schools for Low-Income Students.” The first list identifies top-performing
schools based on a metric of student achievement and college preparedness data
provided by the National Center for Education Statistics and from our survey of
schools. Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a
long-established player in high school rankings, sits at the top of the pile.
It will come as no surprise that this list is dominated by schools in
areas with high average income and low racial diversity. So we produced a second
list that takes into consideration how well schools serve students from
economically disadvantaged backgrounds—measured by the percentage of students
qualifying for free school lunches. There is almost no overlap in the top 10
schools on each list. Thomas Jefferson was in 14th place in the second list,
while the top school serving low-income students, Emma Lazarus High School in
New York, was 21st on the absolute list.
We hope that providing two lists instead of one sheds light on the
underlying factors often ignored or submerged in school rankings. Read on for
our profiles of the schools at the top of each list
Southwest Ranked 412 out of the over 35,000 in America
Southwest Ranked 412 out of the over 35,000 in America
Beating The Odds 2014 - Top Schools For Low-Income Students
This year, Newsweek sought to recognize schools that
beat the odds, performing better than statistically expected for their level of
poverty. For this list, we ranked schools on how well they prepare their
students for college, taking students’ socio-economic background into account. A
next to a school’s name means that low-income
students are scoring at or above average on state assessments. This is our way
of recognizing schools that narrow the acheivement gap.
Southwest Ranked 189 out of the over 35,000 in America
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