School rankings are always fun to see. On May 5, 2017, the Washington Post put out the ranking, “America’s Most Challenging High Schools.”
The study evaluates schools that are working the “hardest to challenge students from all backgrounds with courses such as AP and International Baccalaureate.” It “ranks schools through an index formula that’s a simple ratio: the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education tests given at a school each year, divided by the number of seniors who graduated that year.” Only about 1% of schools qualify.
With any study, always do you research. But, it’s fantastic to see our area schools ranking well. This study is particularly interesting, as it includes both public and private schools. Not every private school meets the criteria for inclusion, but, many great schools like Westminster in Atlanta, GA or Harvard-Westlake, in Los Angeles, CA did make the cut (Probably plenty of others, those are just two areas I happened to have lived in at one point in life).
Per the usual, our area schools Stanton College Prep and Paxon School for Advanced Studies , both in Duval County, Jacksonville, FL ranked #13 and #27 respectively. But hey, Ponte Vedra High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, St. Johns County ranked at #101, and Allen D. Nease High School in St Johns County ranked at #255. This is out of 2369 schools included in the analysis. If you are worried that maybe 101 and 255 aren’t that great. Please understand there are over 37,000 high schools, public and private in the US. That puts Ponte Vedra High School and Nease High School in the top .015% of all schools. And, well, if your child is at Stanton or Paxon…..
Here’s an editorial about the process from Columnist Jay Matthews of the Washington Post.
US News and World Report released their school rankings this Spring. Click here for more details.
If you are interested in school zoning in the area, here is a map that breaks down St Johns County School Zoning. And here is a map that shows zoning in Duval County.
