Newsweek’s Top Public High Schools 2016: How Massachusetts Schools Ranked

Just in time for the start of the school year, Newsweek released its annual list Thursday of the top public high schools in America in 2016, and it’s one list you’ll actually want to pay attention to.

We know you see a lot of lists. Ten Most Redneck Towns. Twenty Least-Affordable States. Fattest Counties In The United States. Best Cities for People with Two Kids, One Dog but No Cats.

Newsweek’s rankings of the best public high schools in the country stand apart. Here's the full list.

The school rankings are borne of legitimate research. Newsweek, along with the analytics firm Westat, uses verified and objective measurements to put together its annual ranking of the country’s best high schools. (More on that below.)

In Massachusetts, 18 schools made the 500-strong national list, which is assembled based on a range of data bent on answering the question: "Does this high school prepare students for college?" Factors include college enrollment rates, graduation rates, standardized testing scores and more.

Check your local Patch for more information on your school's ranking.

Here are the top Massachusetts schools that made the list, and how they ranked nationally:

1. Boston Latin School, Boston (28)

2. Westford Academy, Westford (47)

3. Weston High School, Weston (53)

4. Lexington High School, Lexington (80)

5. Westborough High School, Westborough (95)

6. Brookline High School, Brookline (99)

7. Hingham High School, Hingham (104)

8. Algonquin Regional High School, Northborough (129)

9. Marblehead High School, Marblehead (143)

10. Arlington High School, Arlington (248)

11. Medway High School, Medway (312)

12. Norwell High School, Norwell (332)

13. Belchertown High School, Belchertwon (359)

14. Millis High School, Millis (395)

15. Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School, South Hamilton (400)

16. Braintreet High School, Braintree (436)

17. Nipmuc Regional High School, Upton (466)

18. Medfield High School, Medfield (476)

Eleven schools that made the 2015 list were not in the top 500 in 2016. Those schools are: Dover-Sherborn Regional High School, Newton North High, Hopkinton High, Shrewsbury Senior High, Groton Dunstable Regional, Longmeadow High, Georgetown High, King Phillip Regional High, Ashland High, Natick High and Chelmsford High.

So, how do they come up with the rankings?

Newsweek looked at six measurements and weighted them to come up with a “college readiness index.” The rankings are meant to show how well high schools do at preparing students for college.

Those measurements and their weight are:

• 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

In all, 6,477 of the nation’s 15,819 public high schools met the criteria to be considered in Newsweek’s rankings.

Newsweek used school performance data from the National Center for Education Statistics to narrow down the list of schools.

Of those 6,477 schools, 4,760 were considered for the overall rankings, while 4,452 made the cut for another list of schools that were “beating the odds.” (Many schools made both lists.)

For the the “beating the odds” rankings, a school’s college readiness scores were adjusted for how they compared against other schools that had similar percentages of students eligible for free or reduced lunch.

Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, took the top spot in this year’s overall rankings for the third year in a row. The school has been a regular powerhouse on previous best schools rankings and puts an emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics classes.

“We’re preparing kids to go into fields that have yet to be invented,” Principal Evan Glazer told Newsweek last year. “We’re really focusing more on skills and an appreciation for STEM. But if they decide to become journalists, we convey that they have a unique knowledge base in STEM. They would be able to contribute to articles on energy, the environment, and government policy on those important issues.”

— By Marc Torrence, Patch staff

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