Newsweek Ranks Pacific Palisades School Among Top in Nation

Palisades Charter High School is once again earning national recognition as one of the top schools in the country, ranking high on Newsweek’s list of the best public high schools in the country.

Just in time for the start of the school year, Newsweek released its annual list Thursday of the top public high schools in America for 2016. According to Newsweek, Palisades Charter High School ranks 23rd in the state and 164th in the nation. The list ranks 6,477 of the nation’s 15,819 public high schools based on a combination of criteria from test scores, graduation and college enrollment ratios, advanced placement courses and staffing ratios.

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

1. Academy for Math, Science, and Engineering (Rockaway, NJ)
2. Stuyvesant High School (New York, NY)
3. Union County Magnet High School (Scotch Plains, NJ)
4. The Early College at Guilford (Greensboro, NC)
5. Stanton College Preparatory School (Jacksonville, FL)
6. Whitney (Gretchen) High School (Cerritos, CA)
7. Northside College Preparatory High School (Chicago, IL)
8. North Oldham High School (Goshen, KY)
9. Middlesex Cty Acad. for Sci,, Math, & Engineering Tech. (Edison, NJ)
10. Bergen County Academies (Hackensack, NJ)

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, following the release of the 2015 report. “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.”

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

7. Whitney (Gretchen) High School, Cerritos
18. Monta Vista High School, Cupertino
25. Northwood High School, Irvine
29. Lynbrook High School, San Jose
35. Cupertino High School, Cupertino
50 Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, Rolling Hills Estates
51. Oak Park High School, Oak Park
57. University High School, Irvine
69. Woodbridge High School, Irvine
74. Homestead High School, Cupertino

This year’s rankings were weighted by:

• Holding power: 10 percent
• Ratio of counselor/full-time equivalent to student enrollment: 10 percent
• Weighted SAT/ACT: 17.5 percent
• Weighted AP/IB/dual enrollment composite: 17.5 percent
• Graduation rate: 20 percent
• College enrollment rate: 25 percent