PUSD Schools Ranked by U.S. News and World Report

Three of the Pasadena Unified School District's high schools were ranked in the listings of the top schools in California, according to U.S. News and World Report’s 2012 rankings released Tuesday.

According to the magazine, Marshall Fundamental High School ranked as the 162nd best in California, Pasadena High ranked at 345, and Blair High listed as number 355.  John Muir High School was listed as unranked in the report.

In individual categories, Marshall and Pasadena both were listed as having class to teacher ratios above California average, while Blair and John Muir were listed as having near average ratios.  

Marshall was listed as having above average readiness for college, Blair and Pasadena were listed as near average, and John Muir was listed as below average.

All schools were listed as having API Indexes that were near California average, though the schools scores vary widely with Pasadena with an average API score of 757 and Muir at 631.

To determine the rankings, U.S. News reported that it teamed up with American Institutes for Research (AIR), one of the largest behavioral and social science organizations in the world.

“AIR implemented U.S. News's comprehensive rankings methodology, which is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college-bound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators,” according to U.S. News.

AIR and U.S. News analyzed 21,776 public high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia that had 12^th-grade enrollment and adequate data to analyze—mostly from the 2009-10 school year.

NATIONAL RANKING

A three-step process was used to determine the Best High Schools, U.S. News explained. Those that made it past the first two steps were then evaluated by a third step.

To win a gold or silver medal and be ranked, a high school had to pass the first two steps and have a college readiness index at or above the median benchmark (see step three). The 4,887 highest-scoring schools were ranked gold, silver or bronze.

Marshall scored at 839 nationally, Pasadena at 1654, and Blair at 1705.  John Muir was listed as unranked.

Step 1: Were each school’s students performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state?

Factors: Reading and math results on each state’s high school proficiency tests

Percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to identify the schools that were performing better than statistical expectations. 

Step 2: Were the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low-income) performing better than average for similar students in the state?

Factors: Compared math and proficiency rates

Step 3: Are a school’s students college-ready?

Factors: A college readiness index based on how many students participated in Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests and how students fared on the tests.

See the full methodology for how rankings were determined here.

STATE RANKINGS

These rankings were based on if a high school is ranked gold or silver nationally and what that ranking is.

U.S News used the example that if the highest-ranked high school in a state is No. 50 nationally, then that school is also ranked No. 1 in that state.

See Charter and magnet school rankings methods here.

RANKINGS CRITERIA CHANGES

Three main changes were made in how the Best High Schools rankings were determined in 2012, compared to the last edition in December 2009:

• Increased number of medal winning schools that could then be analyzed for rankings.
• More schools were numerically ranked—all the gold and silver medal winners instead of just top 100 gold schools
• Lower college readiness benchmark was used to determine if a school received medal status—16.3 was the 2012 benchmark, compared to 20.0 previously.