Schools

Best Illinois High Schools 2017: U.S. News and World Report

U.S. News and World Report's 2017 "best high schools" is out and 105 Illinois schools made the cut. Did your school make the list?

U.S. News and World Report has crunched the numbers for 2017, releasing its annual list of best high schools in the country, ranking the schools on a national and a state level.

In Illinois, Northside College Preparatory High School in Chicago earned the title of the best high school in the state. Overall, the school ranked as the 40th best high school in the country. Payton College Preparatory High School in Chicago ranked as the second best in the state, followed by Jones College Prep High School, also in Chicago. Fourteen Illinois high schools were given gold medals by U.S. News, 67 received silver medals and the remaining 24 schools received bronze medals.

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Mayor Rahm Emanuel not only praised Northside's, Preparatory's and Jones' rankings, but he lauded the four other Chicago schools — Young Magnet, Lane Technical, Lincoln Park and Brooks College Prep Academy high schools — that made the magazine's top 10. Emanuel also used the city's performance in the rankings to take shots at Springfield and Gov. Bruce Rauner, as well as mentioning the current Chicago Public Schools lawsuit against the State of Illinois, claiming the education funding system is "seperate and unequal" and violates the Illinois Civil Rights Act. A ruling on that lasuit is expected Friday.

"Despite a discriminatory state funding formula that treats Chicago students as second-class citizens, and a governor who has not introduced a balanced budget in over two years while wreaking havoc on education funding from Pre-K to college, Chicago schools and students continue to beat the odds and break new records every year," he said in a statement released Tuesday. "CPS students, teachers, principals and families deserve tremendous credit for their hard work, talent and unwavering commitment to academic success.”

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RELATED: CPS Sues State Of Illinois Over Illegal, Discriminatory School Funding

Compared to other states, Illinois came in 22nd, with 12.4 percent of the state’s schools receiving silver or gold medals.

The 2017 rankings of best high schools identify the top-performing public schools at both the national and the state level and include data on more than 20,000 high schools. To be considered among the best, high schools had to pass a rigorous four-step process that sought to determine whether a school was serving all of its students and not just those who are college bound.

The first step determined whether students at a particular school were performing better than statistically expected for students in that state, factoring in percentages of economically disadvantaged students to identify schools. Schools that passed this step then moved on to step two, which assessed whether disadvantaged students performed at or better than state averages for the least-advantaged students.

For the next two steps, U.S. News looked at graduation rates and college readiness performance. To pass step three, high schools had to have a graduation rate of 75 percent or greater. For the 2017 rankings, the graduation rate reflect students who entered the ninth grade in the 2011-2012 school year. Finally, U.S. News calculated a college readiness index, which was the number of 12th graders who took and passed at least one AP test, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

To be ranked numerically nationally, schools had to pass steps 1-3 and have a college readiness index of 20.91 or above.

A total of 6,041 schools were ranked, 500 schools receiving gold medals, 2,109 schools receiving silver medals and the remaining 3,432 schools received bronze medals. Schools that received bronze medals passed the first three steps but were not ranked numerically in the national rankings. The state rankings were based on whether a high school received a gold, silver or a bronze medal and had a CRI value of 10 or higher. Previously, only gold and silver medal winners were ranked numerically on the state level.

The top high 10 schools in Illinois are:

  1. Northside College Preparatory High School, Chicago (National rank: 40)
  2. Payton College Preparatory High School, Chicago (National rank: 64)
  3. Jones College Prep High School, Chicago (National rank: 110)
  4. Young Magnet High School, Chicago (National rank: 132)
  5. Lane Technical High School, Chicago (National rank: 156)
  6. Adlai E Stevenson High School, Lincolnshire (National rank: 194)
  7. Hinsdale Central High School, Hinsdale (National rank: 332)
  8. Lincoln Park High School, Chicago (National rank: 350)
  9. Prospect High School, Mount Prospect (National rank: 364)
  10. Brooks College Prep Academy High School, Chicago (National rank: 398)

Click here to see the full list

The top high schools in the country are:

  1. BASIS Scottsdale, Scottsdale, Arizona
  2. BASIS Tucson North, Tucson, Arizona
  3. BASIS Oro Valley, Oro Valley, Arizona
  4. School for the Talented and Gifted, Dallas, Texas
  5. BASIS Peoria, Peoria, Arizona
  6. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Virginia
  7. Basis Chandler, Chandler, Arizona
  8. Carnegie Vanguard High School, Houston, Texas
  9. School of Science and Engineering, Dallas, Texas
  10. Pacific Collegiate Charter, Santa Cruz, California

Click here to see the full list.

Patch Editor Joe Vince contributed to this report.


Image via Pixabay

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