Franklin Regional HS Ranked 134th Best In America

Just in time for the start of the school year, Newsweek released its annual list Wednesday of the top public high schools in America for 2015.

Pennsylvania had 21 schools on the list of the top 500 across the nation, led by Conestoga High School in Berwyn, which was ranked 51st.

North Allegheny High School ranked 131st.

Here are the top 10 high schools in the United States, according to Newsweek:

1. Thomas Jefferson High (Alexandria, VA)
2. High Technology High School (Lincroft, NJ)
3. Academy for Mathematics Science and Engineering (Rockaway, NJ)
4. Union County Magnet High School (Scotch Plains, NJ)
5. Bergen County Academies (Hackensack, NJ)
6. Gretchen Whitney High (Cerritos, CA)
7. Middlesex County Academy for Math Science & Engineering (Edison, NJ)
8. International Academy (Bloomfield Hills, MI)
9. Academy of Allied Health and Science (Neptune, NJ)
10. Walter Payton College Preparatory HS (Chicago, IL)

Nearby New Jersey has six of the top 10 public high schools in the country, while Virginia, Michigan, California and Illinois had one each. The list includes 500 schools.

Thomas Jefferson took the top spot for the second year in a row. High Technology High School rocketed to No. 2 from No. 185 last year.

Neither Academy for Mathematics Science and Engineering nor Bergen County made the list in 2014, while Union County dropped to the No. 4 spot from No. 2.

See the full rankings here.

In Pennsylvania, the southeastern part of the state was very well-represented on the list, with seven schools from Montgomery County, four schools from Chester County, four from Bucks County, and two from Delaware County making the top 500.

Council Rock School District turned in an especially impressive showing, with CR North ranking 111th and CR South placing 333rd.

Here’s the full list of the 21 best schools in the state, according to Newsweek:

51. Conestoga High School, Berwyn

64. Lower Merion HS, Ardmore

111. Council Rock HS North, Newtown

131. North Allegheny Senior High School, Wexford

134. Franklin Regional Senior High School, Murrysville

136. Jenkintown Middle/High School, Jenkintown

168. Garnet Valley HS, Glen Mills

188. Harriton Senior High School, Rosemont

201. Quaker Valley HS, Leetsdale

208. Upper Dublin HS, Fort Washington

234. Wissahickon Senior High School, Ambler

246. Peters Township High School, Mcmurray

290. Lower Moreland HS, Huntingdon Valley

333. Council Rock HS South, Holland

342. Owen J. Roberts HS, Pottstown

392. New Hope-Solebury HS, New Hope

420. West Chester East HS, West Chester

440. Haverford Senior High School, Havertown

454. Abington Heights HS, Clarks Summit

455. West Chester Bayard Rustin HS, West Chester

462. Downingtown HS East Campus, Exton

473. Central Bucks HS-West, Doylestown

The rankings were compiled using several metrics, including graduation rate, college enrollment rate, SAT and ACT scores, AP and IB scores and participation, teacher-student ratio and dropout rates.

“Some factors are more important, especially since our rankings focus on college readiness,” Jim Impoco, editor in chief of Newsweek, told Patch via email. “We place emphasis on criteria like college enrollment and graduation rate since we know that those are some of the biggest indicators of whether students are prepared for college.”

This year’s rankings were weighted by:

• Enrollment Rate—25 percent
• Graduation Rate—20 percent
• Weighted AP/IB/Dual Enrollment composite—17.5 percent
• Weighted SAT/ACT composite—17.5 percent
• Change in student enrollment between 9th-12th grades, to control for dropout rates—10 percent
• Counselor-to-Student Ratio—10 percent

“The top 20 schools on the ‘America’s Top High Schools’ are neck and neck. They all have perfect or near-perfect college enrollment and graduation rates,” Impoco said. “You start to see more variation as you look further down the list and also when you look at the factors that have less weight, like test scores.”