Avon Lake One Of Ohio's 20 Best High Schools: US News And World Report

AVON LAKE, OH - U.S. News and World Report has crunched the numbers for 2017, releasing its annual list of best high schools in the country, ranking the schools on a national and a state level. Avon Lake ranks 13th in the state. Nationally, the high school ranks 351st.

The report also issued medals (gold, silver, bronze) to districts based on performance. Avon Lake received a gold medal. According to the U.S. News and World Report Scorecard, the school scored 98 percent in both Math and English proficiency.

The district received a 62.0 on its college readiness score. The Scorecard also said the school's AP Test participation rate is 72 percent and and 81 percent for AP Test passing. The report also notes that the school has a 96 percent graduation rate for student.

The 2017 rankings of best high schools identify the top-performing public schools at both the national and the state level and include date on more than 20,000 high schools. To be considered among the best, high schools had to pass a rigorous four-step process that sought to determine whether a school was serving all of its students and not just those who are college bound.

The first step determined whether students at a particular school were performing better than statistically expected for students in that state, factoring in percentages of economically disadvantaged students to identify schools. Schools that passed this step then moved on to step two, which assessed whether disadvantaged students performed at or better than state averages for the least-advantaged students.

For the next two steps, U.S. News looked at graduation rates and college readiness performance. To pass step three, high schools had to have a graduation rate of 75 percent or greater. For the 2017 rankings, the graduation rate reflect students who entered the ninth grade in the 2011-2012 school year. Finally, U.S. News calculated a college readiness index, which was the number of 12th graders who took and passed at least one AP test, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

To be ranked numerically nationally, schools had to pass steps 1-3 and have a college readiness index of 20.91 or above.

A total of 6,041 schools were ranked, 500 schools receiving gold medals, 2,109 schools receiving silver medals and the remaining 3,432 schools received bronze medals. Schools that received bronze medals passed the first three steps but were not ranked numerically in the national rankings. The state rankings were based on whether a high school received a gold, silver or a bronze medal and had a CRI value of 10 or higher. Previously, only gold and silver medal winners were ranked numerically on the state level.

The top high 10 schools in Ohio are:

1. Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati
2. Wyoming High School, Wyoming
3. Indian Hill High School, Cincinnati
4. Bexley High School, Bexley
5. Madeira High School, Cincinnati
6. Aurora High School, Aurora
7. Hudson High School, Hudson
8. Olentangy Liberty High School, Olentangy Local
9. Dublin Jerome High School, Dublin
10. Olentangy High School, Lewis Center

Photo from Avon Lake Schools