Santa Monica High Earns Silver Medal In Best High School Ranking

SANTA MONICA, CA -- The number has been crunched for 2017 and U.S. News and World Report this week released its annual list of the best high schools in the country, ranking the schools on a national and state level.

How did Santa Monica do? The school was ranked 105th within California. It earned a college readiness index of 58.2 because 63 percent of students took Advanced Placement classes and a passing rate of 79 percent. Samohi was also ranked 606th nationally, which earned it a silver medal. Schools are ranked based on their performance on state-required tests and how well they prepare students for college.

The 2017 rankings of best high schools identify the top-performing public schools at both the national and the state level and include data on more than 28,000 high schools. In California, 85 high schools were given gold medals by U.S. News, 416 received silver medals and 154 schools received bronze medals.

Statewide, Pacific Collegiate Charter School in Santa Cruz earned the title of the best high school in the state. Overall, the school ranked as the 10th best high school in the country. Oxford Academy in Cypress ranked as the second best in the state, followed by Gretchen Whitney High School in Cerritos.

To be considered among the best, high schools had to pass a rigorous four-step process that sought to determine whether a school was serving all of its students and not just those who are college bound.

The first step determined whether students at a particular school were performing better than statistically expected for students in that state, factoring in percentages of economically disadvantaged students to identify schools. Schools that passed this step then moved on to step two, which assessed whether disadvantaged students performed at or better than state averages for the least-advantaged students.

For the next two steps, U.S. News looked at graduation rates and college readiness performance. To pass step three, high schools had to have a graduation rate of 75 percent or greater. For the 2017 rankings, the graduation rate reflect students who entered the ninth grade in the 2011-2012 school year. Finally, U.S. News calculated a college readiness index, which was the number of 12th graders who took and passed at least one AP test, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

To be ranked numerically nationally, schools had to pass steps 1-3 and have a college readiness index of 20.91 or above.

A total of 6,041 schools were ranked, 500 schools receiving gold medals, 2,109 schools receiving silver medals and the remaining 3,432 schools received bronze medals, while also being ranked nationally.

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