Newsweek Selects Hatboro-Horsham High School as One of "America's Top High Schools"

What does a strong and collaborative commitment to educating students look like? Hatboro-Horsham High School should know: the school was nationally ranked this week in Newsweek’s 2014 “America’s Top High Schools” report. With more than 14,000 high schools under consideration, Hatboro-Horsham High School was ranked in the top 500, with a stellar designation of 343.

According to the publication’s website, “Newsweek’s 2014 Rankings highlights schools that do the absolute best job of preparing students for college.” Hatboro-Horsham, like the other high-achieving high schools, shined on performance indicators which spotlighted proficiency rates on standardized state assessments. Newsweek created an index to locate within each state those schools that achieved a percentile of at least 80.

Hatboro-Horsham also was determined to have a high College Readiness Score which factored in critical criteria such as enrollment and graduation rates, SAT/ACT and AP composite scores, counselor-to-student ratios and holding power (efforts to control student attrition).

“This is a team effort, great people doing great things for kids,” said High School Principal Dennis Williams. “We realize there is still work to be done in order to continually improve; however, it is nice to receive recognition for the strides we are making as a building.”

“Knowing that 14,000 high schools were considered for this ranking makes Hatboro-Horsham’s rating of 343 most impressive,” said Superintendent Curtis Griffin. “On a local level, our high school was one of only six in the county to appear on the list. We should all be proud of this.”

How Newsweek Conducted Its Rankings

Newsweek changed how it ranked high schools this year, creating two lists of schools. One was an absolute list of rankings, which included Hatboro-Horsham. The other, a so-called relative list, was comprised of schools whose students live in low socio-economic conditions. Some of those schools made both lists.

For the absolute list, Newsweek ranked schools using an index that was created using performance indicators taken from standardized assessments provided by each state. The index identified schools performing at or above the 80th percentile.

For more information, click here. http://www.newsweek.com/high-schools/top-10-schools-2014#