Newsweek's Best High Schools: Did Yours Make the 2016 List?

BRIARCLIFF MANOR, NY — Eight lower Hudson Valley high schools made it onto Newsweek’s 2016 list of the best public high schools in the country — but last year, there were 15 on the list.

Here is this year's group:

• Briarcliff High School No. 33
• Rye High School No. 98
• Harrison High School No. 135
• Irvington High School No. 159
• Clarkstown High School South No. 167
• Eastchester High School No. 194
• Westlake High School No. 340
• Red Hook Senior High School No. 350
• Rhinebeck High School No. 388

Now last year, 15 schools made it on Newsweek's 2015 list of the top public high schools in America: Briarcliff, Bronxville, Blind Brook, Rye, Eastchester, Rye Neck, Ardsley, Clarkstown North, Hastings, Irvington, Pleasantville, Pelham, Dobbs Ferry, Rhinebeck, and Suffern.

However, the number of schools recognized by Newsweek was a little larger, as a few more made it onto the magazine’s 2016 Beating the Odds list (some repeats):

• Rye High School No. 204;
• Clarkstown South, No. 254;
• Irvington 279;
• Sleepy Hollow High School, at 358;
• Red Hook Senior High School, No. 372;
• Port Chester Senior High School, 407;
• Highland High School, 497.

Back in 2008, many Westchester school districts decided to boycott the rankings.

A letter complaining about the rankings was sent to the Washington Post. Jay Mathews, founder of the rankings, discussed it in a column back then.

"Determining whether different schools do or don't offer a high quality of education requires a look at many different measures, including students' overall academic accomplishments and their subsequent performance in college, and taking into consideration the unique needs of their communities. Students and school communities deserve better than simplistic and misleading school rankings," said these superintendents: Ardsley, Jason Friedman; Bedford, Debra Jackson; Blind Brook-Rye, Ronald D. Valenti; Brewster, Jane Sandbank; Bronxville, David Quattrone; Byram Hills, John Chambers; Chappaqua, David Fleishman; Dobbs Ferry, Debra Kaplan; Edgemont, Nancy Taddiken; Greenburgh/North Castle, Robert Maher; Hewlett-Woodmere, Les Omotani; Katonah-Lewisboro, Robert Roelle; Mamaroneck, Paul Fried; Mt. Pleasant-Cottage School, Norman Freimark; North Shore, Ed Melnick; Ossining, Phyllis Glassman; Rye Neck, Peter Mustich; Scarsdale, Mike McGill; Spackenkill, Lois Colletta; Tuckahoe, Mike Yazurlo; Valhalla, Diane Ramos-Kelly.

So how did Newsweek come up with the rankings?

Newsweek looked at six measurements and weighted them to achieve a “college readiness index.” The rankings show how well high schools prepare 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 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 “beating the odds.” (Many schools made both lists.)

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

In Newsweek’s opinion, New Jersey has three of the top 10 public high schools in the country, the only state to have more than one. New York’s only school in the Top 10 is no surprise: Stuyvesant High School in NYC.

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.

Here's a look at all 59 New York schools that made the list of the top 500 public high schools in the country.