Earlier this week U.S. News & World Report released the fourth edition of its Best High Schools rankings, highlighting some of the highest performing schools in the country. This year, the two best high schools from both Dayton and Columbus made the cut. (And all four are profiled in our upcoming Needles in a Haystack Report.)
Receiving a Silver medal:
- Columbus Alternative High School (reading proficiency: 89 percent, math proficiency: 88 percent),
- Centennial High School (reading proficiency: 92 percent, math proficiency: 88 percent),
- Stivers Schools of the Arts High School (reading proficiency: 90 percent, math proficiency: 86 percent)
Receiving a Bronze medal:
- Dayton Early College Academy (DECA) (reading proficiency: 94 percent, math proficiency: 100 percent)
To come up with the list of the best high schools in the country, U.S. News & World Report analyzed 21,776 public high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Schools were evaluated by how well they serve all of their students using state proficiency tests as the benchmarks, as well as the degree to which the school prepared students for college- level work. Based on their performance for those measurements 4,877 of the highest performing schools were awarded a gold, silver, or bronze medal.
In cities where quality, high-performing high schools are desperately needed, these four schools are doing a tremendous job educating their student population and continue to outperform not only other city schools, but suburban schools as well.
Congratulations to Columbus Alternative, Centennial, Stivers, and DECA on your awards. This is a truly a testament of all the hard work and dedication of the teachers, staff, and students over the years. For more information on these high schools and a detailed look at what makes them successful, stay tuned for our upcoming report on high performing urban high schools due out this fall.
In addition to the great things happening in Dayton and Columbus a third city in Ohio is also being recognized for success in education. The Cleveland Plain Dealer published an article about The Cleveland Foundation’s College Now Scholars, a program designed to help the best Cleveland Schools students identify, apply, and find financial aid for college. Of the 52 participants this year, a couple of students came from high schools profiled in our upcoming Needles report. Daryl Mapson of Cleveland Schools of the Arts received a full scholarship to the dance program of Skidmore College in New York, and Hassan Khaled of John Hay Early College High School will be studying computer engineering at Oberlin College. (Here are a few of these high schools’ statistics.)
When so much is changing in education, it’s refreshing to see that schools are being recognized for their hard work and success.
