Millburn High Among U.S. News 'Best STEM High Schools' For 2018

MILLBURN, NJ — Millburn has one of the best high schools in America when it comes to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), according to new rankings by U.S. News & World Report.

Millburn High School ranked #380 nationally and #15 in New Jersey. But it also ranked #55 on the list of STEM High Schools, U.S. News stated. (See MHS’s full 2018 ranking here)

The rankings come as the U.S. finds itself lagging behind many other advanced industrial nations when it comes to math and science. In 2015, the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, ranked the U.S. 38th out of 71 countries for math literacy and 24th for science literacy.

Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative, America ranked 30th in math and 19th in science.

U.S. News’s STEM high school rankings looked at the the top 500 public schools from the overall rankings and then evaluated for the schools for student participation — and success — in Advanced Placement science and math tests.

AP is a College Board program that offers college-level courses at high schools. Students at these schools “must participate in and pass a robust curriculum of college-level math and science courses,” U.S. News says on its website.

For mathematics, AP courses include Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Computer Science A and Statistics. For science, AP courses include Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Physics 1, Physics 2, Physics B, Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism and Physics C: Mechanics.

New Jersey, Texas and California each had at least two schools crack the top 10 overall for best STEM schools.

Click here to read more about the methodology.

Patch reporters Dan Hampton and Feroze Dhanoa contributed to this report.

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