Three PUSD High Schools Among Top 500 in CA

U.S. News and World report released their annual list of high school rankings Tuesday. Though Marshall Fundamental High School in Pasadena cracked the top 200, high schools in the Pasadena Unified School District didn’t rank as high as some of the schools in neighboring districts.

La Cañada High School is 29th on the list, while San Marino High School is 42nd. Arcadia High School is 64th and South Pasadena Senior High is 79th.

Of the four traditional high schools in the PUSD, three made the top 500: Marshall Fundamental High School is 162nd, Pasadena High is 345th and Blair High School is 355th. John Muir High School was not ranked.

A total of 577 California schools made the list. Nationally, 21,776 schools were reviewed.

The number-one spot went to Oxford Academy in Cypress, which has a College Readiness Index of 100 and an Academic Performance Index (API) of 984.

Here’s U.S. News and World Report’s breakdown of PUSD high schools:

Marshall Fundamental High School

• State Rank: 162
• National Rank: 839
• College Readiness Index: 35.3
• Academic Performance Index (API): 749
• Student/Teacher Ratio: 26:1

Pasadena High School

• State Rank: 345
• National Rank: 1,654
• College Readiness Index: 20.9
• Academic Performance Index (API): 757
• Student/Teacher Ratio: 25:1

Blair High School:

• State Rank: 355
• National Rank: 1,705
• College Readiness Index: 20.1
• Academic Performance Index (API): 753
• Student/Teacher Ratio: 20:1

API scores are out of a possible 1000, and are determined by California High School Exit Examination and Standardized Testing and Reporting results. 

College Readiness Index scores are out of a possible 100 and determined by Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) exam participation rates and performance.

More About the Ranking Process

To determine the rankings, U.S. News reported that it teamed up with American Institutes for Research (AIR), one of the largest behavioral and social science organizations in the world.

“AIR implemented U.S. News's comprehensive rankings methodology, which is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college-bound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators,” according to U.S. News.

AIR and U.S. News analyzed 21,776 public high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia that had 12th-grade enrollment and adequate data to analyze—mostly from the 2009-10 school year.

Are the Results Accurate?

Some educators have called out the U.S. News and World Report for using incorrect information in their study. The principal of Green Valley High School in Henderson, NV, whose school ranks 13th in the nation, told the Las Vegas Sun some of the information used to determine their ranking is grossly inaccurate.

This year's "Best High Schools" report, available exclusively online, is U.S. News & World Report's fourth edition.