Three local high schools ranked in top 500

Only three San Mateo County high schools made the top 500 in Newsweek’s America’s Best High School list, which was released this week.

Summit Preparatory High in Redwood City was at the top of the San Mateo County schools with a rank of 132. Only two other schools in the county earned a spot on the 500-school list: Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, ranked 225; and Mills High School in Millbrae, ranked 244. Last year, nine schools in San Mateo County earned the ranked and three schools from Palo Alto or Los altos were included in the list which was over triple the current list size.

Gunn High School in Palo Alto tops the list locally ranking 42, putting it in the top 10 California schools.

Summit also earned a new distinction as one of the top 10 Miracle High Schools. The Miracle High School list includes schools with an added challenge of taking students at all skill levels and graduating qualified students. Schools within the top 500 were considered for this list. The school’s score was multiplied by the percentage of students who qualified for free- or reduced-price lunch. Schools with merit-based admission policies were ineligible.

"We believe that every student can achieve at the highest academic level if given the opportunity and the right support,” Summit Prep Executive Director Todd Dickson wrote in a prepared statement. "It’s exciting to watch our students successfully rise to the challenge of college level coursework, especially considering that about 75 percent of our students would not be in the [advanced placement] track at a traditional comprehensive high school.”

At Summit Prep, every junior and senior takes an advanced placement exam. In 2010, Dickson reported 75 percent of students passed with a score of three or higher on a scale of five. Even those who don’t pass see a benefit from taking the test, Dickson said.

"There’s research that shows that even if a student gets a one or a two on an AP exam, they’re much more likely to be successful and graduate from a four-year college, just by being exposed to higher level thinking and more rigorous curriculum,” he said.

Previously, Newsweek ranked public schools according to a ratio created by Newsweek education reporter Jay Matthews. The number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Cambridge tests taken by all students at the school in a given year was divided by the total number of graduating seniors. Noting that this could skew results, the formula was revamped this year.

There were six components created after talking to a group of experts — Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO of Teach For America; Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Open Education Solutions and the former executive director for education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford professor of education and founder of the School Redesign Network. The formula includes graduation rates (25 percent), college matriculation rate (25 percent), and AP tests taken per graduate (25 percent), plus average SAT/ACT scores (10 percent), average AP/IB scores (10 percent) and AP courses offered per graduate (5 percent).

The top spot overall went to the School of Science and Engineering Magnet in Dallas. University High School in Irvine is the first California school to appear on the list. It is ranked eighth.

For more information about the Newsweek rankings visit: http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/19/the-best-high-schools-in-america.html,

http://www.newsweek.com/content/newsweek/feature/2011/americas-best-high-schools.html, or

http://www.newsweek.com/content/newsweek/2011/06/21/ten-miracle-high-schools.html.

Heather Murtagh can be reached by email: heather@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 105.