U.S. News 2022 Best High Schools: See How Westfield Ranked

WESTFIELD, NJ — U.S. News & World Report released its list of the best high schools in the nation for 2022, and Westfield High School ranked relatively well.

This year's list evaluated more than 17,800 schools nationwide, including 355 in New Jersey. Westfield Senior High School was ranked #1,152 in the nation, and #48 in the state. The high school dropped seven places in the state ranking and 160 places in the national ranking since last year.

The highest ranked high school in the county is Union County Magnet High School, which U.S. News placed #49 in the nation and #2 in New Jersey.

The full list of rankings can be viewed here.

U.S. News's ranking is intended to show how well the nation's public schools serve all students, regardless of achievement level, by teaching them basic skills and preparing them for college-level work.

To develop these rankings, U.S. News collaborated with RTI International, a North Carolina-based nonprofit social science research firm. RTI implemented a rankings methodology meant to reflect how well high schools serve their students.

Performances on AP and IB exams, as well as standardized tests, account for 90 percent of U.S. News's rankings, while the remaining 10 percent is the graduation rate.

The rankings incorporate six categories:

• college readiness (30 percent of the rankings): the percentage of 12th graders from the class of 2020 who took at least one AP or IB exam by the end of their senior year, and the percentage of 12th graders who earned a qualifying score on at least one AP or IB exam in high school.
• college curriculum breadth (10 percent): the percentage of seniors in the class of 2020 who took a wide variety of AP and IB courses across the multiple disciplines, plus the percentage of 12th graders who earned a qualifying score on them.
• state-assessment proficiency (20 percent): measures how well students scored on state assessments that measure proficiency in reading, science and math.
• state-assessment performance (20 percent): the difference between how students performed on state assessments and what U.S. News predicted based on a school's student body.
• underserved-student performance (10 percent): how well the student population receiving subsidized school lunch and Black and Hispanic populations performed on state assessments relative to statewide performance among students not in the aforementioned subgroups.
• graduation rate: the graduation rate for the class of 2020.

Read more about the methodology here.

But, U.S. News & World Report school rankings have their critics. James Fallows, a former U.S. News editor, even called them "meaningless" in an interview with NPR.

"The reason they started doing it back in the early 1980s under the guidance of a man named Mel Elfin, was because it was a brilliant business strategy," Fallows said. "By appealing to the human desire for rankings and knowing where you stand and where somebody else stands, they were able to make a very strong part of their business, which is now basically the only part of their business."

U.S. News, however, contends that the rankings help parents make better-informed decisions about their children's education.

"The goal is to provide a clear, unbiased picture," the report says, "of how well public schools serve all of their students — from the highest to lowest achieving — in preparing them to demonstrate proficiency in basic skills as well as readiness for college-level work."

This story also contains reporting by Alexis Tarrazi and Josh Bakan.

Have a news tip? Email remy.samuels@patch.com.

Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.