2 LWSD High Schools Ranked Among Top 20 In Washington: U.S. News
The annual U.S. News & World Report high school rankings are out. See where Lake Washington School District schools ranked.
By Neal McNamara , Patch Staff | Apr 30, 2019 1:53 pm ET | Courtesy of Patch.com
LWSD had six schools on the 2019 best high schools list. (Shutterstock)
KIRKLAND, WA — For the second year in a row, Kirkland's International Community School was ranked the No. 2 best high school in the state in U.S. News and World Report's annual high school rankings.
ICS was one of six Lake Washington School District high schools to make the list, which included 17,000 schools from across the U.S. Although Bellevue's International School beat ICS for the No. 1 spot, the high school was ranked the best in the state for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum.
The five other LWSD schools that made the list include: Redmond High (No. 14 in Washington); Lake Washington High (No. 22); Juanita High (No. 29); Eastlake High School (No. 73); and Futures School (No. 125).
Redmond High School made a notable improvement over the 2018 rankings, when it was ranked No. 21 in the state overall.
U.S. News & World Report is the gold standard for education rankings and is widely considered the global authority. Anita Narayan, managing editor of education at U.S. News, said the aim of the rankings is to give families more information about the schools in their district.
"By evaluating more schools than ever before, the new edition expands that focus so all communities can see which schools in their area are successfully serving their students — including historically underserved populations," Narayan said in a news release.
Here are the top 10 high schools in Washington, according to U.S. News:
International School, Bellevue
International Community School (Lake Washington School District), Kirkland
Aviation High School (Highline School District), Tukwila
Newport Senior High School, Bellevue
Garfield High School (Seattle Public Schools), Seattle
Bainbridge High School, Bainbridge Island
Bridgeport High School, Bridgeport
Interlake Senior High School, Bellevue
The factors considered in compiling the list include college readiness; reading and math proficiency; reading and math performance; underserved student performance; college curriculum breadth; and graduation rates. College readiness measures participation and performance on advanced placement and international baccalaureate exams.
The data also take into account school enrollment, student diversity, participation in free and reduced-price meal programs, graduation rates and the results of state assessment tests. U.S. News worked with the global research firm RTI International to rank the schools.
"We enhanced the methodology to provide an even more comprehensive ranking that is easier to understand and, therefore, more useful to parents and educators," Robert Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News, said in a news release. "Now, each school's score correlates to its national percentile — a school with a score of 70 is in the 70th percentile and ranks higher than 70 percent of schools. Going forward, this methodology will allow for intuitive comparisons of a school's performance year after year."
The top 10 schools are in 10 different states, demonstrating that a high-quality education can be found across the country, the report said. Those schools are:
Academic Magnet High School, South Carolina
Maine School of Science and Mathematics
BASIS Scottsdale, Arizona
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Virginia
Central Magnet School, Tennessee
Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology, Georgia
Haas Hall Academy, Arkansas
International Academy of Macomb, Michigan
Payton College Preparatory High School, Illinois
Signature School, Indiana
Several of those schools also were included among rankings for specialized schools.
The top five schools nationally for an education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM schools, are:
High Technology High School, New Jersey
BASIS Scottsdale, Arizona
BASIS Peoria, Arizona
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Georgia
The Early College at Guilford, North Carolina
Charter and magnet schools performed well in the rankings, U.S. News said. Within the top 5 percent of ranked schools, a third are either charter or magnet. In the national rankings, more than 18 percent are charter schools, and 15 percent are magnet schools.
Arizona had three of the top five charter high schools in the country. They are:
BASIS Scottsdale, Arizona
Haas Hall Academy, Arkansas
Signature Academy, Indiana
BASIS Chandler, Arizona
BASIS Peoria, Arizona
The top five magnet high schools are:
Academic Magnet High School, South Carolina
Maine School of Science and Mathematics
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Virginia
Central Magnet School, Tennessee
International Academy of Macomb, Michigan
In the state-by-state performance, based on the number of high schools in the top 25 percent of national rankings, Massachusetts was the leader. This year, nearly half — 48.8 percent — of the commonwealth's high schools were ranked in the top 25 percent of high schools. Maryland was second with 43.7 percent, followed by California, with 40 percent, and Connecticut, with 39.8 percent in the top 25 percent of schools ranked nationally.
Overall, only seven states had more than a third of their schools in the top 25 percent, and 20 states had 25 percent or more of their schools in the top 25 percent.
On the other end of the spectrum, 22 states had fewer than 20 percent of their high schools in the top 25 percent, and seven had fewer than 10 percent of schools in the top tier. South Dakota's schools finished at the bottom of the list since it was the only state that didn't give U.S. News permission to use advanced placement data in the rankings. Even so, 1.9 percent of South Dakota's schools finished in the top 25 percent of rankings.
The full list is available exclusively on usnews.com.