Highland Park High School Named One Of Top STEM Schools In Nation

HIGHLAND PARK, NJ — Congratulations, Highland Park: Highland Park High School was named to a prestigious list of the top STEM schools in the nation.

The ranking was determined by U.S. News & World Report, and just released Wednesday. Highland Park High School was ranked at No. 109, having just missed being included in the top 100 list.

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 (AP) 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.

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.

New Jersey, Texas and California each had at least two schools crack the top 10 overall for best STEM schools. New Jersey actually had three in the top ten. The No. 1 STEM school in the nation is in New Jersey, High Technology High School in Monmouth County:

1. High Technology High School (NJ)
2. BASIS Scottsdale (AZ)
3. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (VA)
4. Bergen County Academies (NJ)
5. The Early College at Guilford (NC)
6. Science and Engineering Magnet School (TX)
7. Monta Vista High (CA)
8. Union County Magnet High School (NJ)
9. Saratoga High (CA)
10. DeBakey High School for Health Professions (TX)

Click here to read more about the methodology.

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