Twenty-one Long Island high schools are among the nation’s top 500, according to Newsweek magazine’s annual rankings.
Jericho High School led the group, ranking 27. Jericho is the only Long Island school to break the top 100 this year.
“We always appreciate the recognition from national sources,” said Henry Grishman, superintendent of the Jericho school district. “It’s a credit to our school community for the tremendous amount of support.”
The list, released Wednesday, was compiled by Newsweek and Westat, a Rockville, Maryland, research group. The information was compiled from federal databases and surveys, according to documentation released with the report.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics were from the 2012-13 school year, the most recent available, and the surveys used data from the 2013-14 school year.
Schools first were added to a short list using standardized test performance. The schools then were ranked based on college enrollment rate, graduation rate, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate enrollment, SAT and ACT scores, student retention and counselor-to-student ratio.
Jericho boasted graduation and college-bound rates of 100 percent and a college readiness score of 89.9. The school did not appear on the 2014 list, but it has done well in previous years and found success on other national rankings.
In 2012, the school was the only one on Long Island to be ranked in the top 100 by the Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek.
Grishman said rankings can be fickle and believes the school’s performance should stand out no matter the number.
“If you look at the quality of the education at Jericho High School and the achievement and results of our kids, we are consistently a high performing district,” he said. “That’s a track record we’re very proud of.”The other schools ranked in the top 200 included Great Neck North High School, at 105; Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK High School at 174; Bellmore’s John F. Kennedy High School at 176; and Great Neck South High School at 196.
Newsweek also created a separate list that accounted for poverty within the student body. That list, titled Beating the Odds, included Oceanside High, ranked 207, with 34.5 percent of students living in poverty.
Oceanside officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Click here for a full list of LI schools on Newsweek’s Top 500
Originally Posted on Newsday.com
By LAURA BLASEY
