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Both Gunn and Palo Alto high schools have ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s 2010 “Gold Medal List” of America’s top 100 high schools.
The magazine hired a data research group to analyze 21,786 public high schools, ranking them on their “college readiness performance” according to student participation and scores on Advanced Placement (AP) Tests or International Baccalaureate test data.
Gunn ranked 67th and Paly 83rd in the top 100.
“While no measure can fully capture the quality of a high school, we are pleased that our schools are recognized by this measure,” Palo Alto School Superintendent Kevin Skelly said.
“This measure also points to the fact that, all over the nation, there are public schools giving students the opportunity to improve their lives through hard work and dedication to schoolwork.”
The ranking methodology was developed by School Evaluation Services, a K-12 education data research business run by Standard & Poor’s.
Before assessing the AP test data, the researchers said they eliminated any school that failed to “serve all its students well.” They did so by including only schools whose students — including low-income and minority students — were performing above state averages for their particular groups on state proficiency exams.
The analysis “is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all 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,” U.S. News & World Report said.
At Gunn, 73.5 percent of seniors took at least one AP exam during high school. At Paly, that figure was 70.4 percent. Gunn had 5.2 AP exams per test-taker while Paly had 3.4.
At both schools, 5 percent of students are economically disadvantaged. At Gunn, black, Hispanic and American-Indian enrollment is 7.9 percent. At Paly it is 12.3 percent.
Number one on the ‘Gold Medal List’ was Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va.
Two California schools made the top five: Whitney High School in Cerritos and Oxford Academy in Cypress.
The highest-ranked Bay Area school was Pacific Collegiate, a charter school in Santa Cruz, at No. 7.
Behind it were Lowell High School in San Francisco, Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, Gunn, Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Piedmont High School in Piedmont, Paly, Campolinda High School in Moraga, Miramonte High School in Orinda and Saratoga High School.
Congrats to both Palo Alto schools on the gold medals! I wish they were not so focused on the AP exam – guess they have to measure it some way.
the 28th in the list is San Francisco Lowell High School that is the only big city High school that I see in the list. All others are located in suburbia USA unfortunately.
Why can’t they measure on API scores instead of viewing the AP tests of the top students? APIs would reflect the entire school.
“Why can’t they measure on API scores instead of viewing the AP tests of the top students? APIs would reflect the entire school.”
API tests are California only. Note also that most of the top ranked schools are merit based or charter schools.
How ironic. Someone please explain this to me because the PAUSD elementary schools are the worst in the nation.
Person above: check your facts, bro.
Well done to both schools. All the more reason to allow our kids to let loose and relieve themselves by throwing eggs at eachother… But hopefully it can be brought back to the Stanford forest. These kids work their butts off to acheive this kind of success, let them enjoy their adolescense.
I don’t intend to sound critical or mean spirited. I’m a Paly alumni, so I guess I know what a great education entails. If this is one of the best schools in the nation, this nation is in deep do-do.
You got that right! We’re talking about a nation that elected Barack Obama (heck, I thought he was Irish!)
I guess we should say that this is a list of best PUBLIC high schools. I don’t see Harker etc in the list.
This is excellent news but I think I’ve seen both schools listed higher in previous years.
Considering how things are right now with the emotional health of high school students the ranking is not bad at all. It could be worst, maybe the people who ranked the schools do not know what is going on here in Palo Alto.
I’d be curious where we stand in ranking comprehensive schools only. Many of these schools sound like charters and magnet schools.
If our rankings are slipping, that’s positive. I am tired of all the academic military parents moving to town for PAUSD. Our kids have no time to breathe now due to the parents who force their children to study 24/7 (with a 4-hour break for sleep). More balance for our high school students would be welcomed by all.
Hence prohibitive home prices
Lowell High School in San Francisco (#28), and Masterman in Philadelphia (#45) educate scores of socioeconomic disadvantaged youth, the great majority of whom do not have Mommies and Daddies who are able to explain Calculus to them, know somebody who does or can hire tutors. If we compare demographics, the self selected and statistically skewed Gunn High students’s achievements are not really “bragable”.
For comparison see Mission San Jose High School in Fremont (#36).
The demographics of Gunn High are similar to those of Thomas Jefferson in Alexandria Virginia and yet they are 67 points apart. Jeferson#1 and Gunn High #67.
It is very nice #67. Congratulations…but you should have done much better.
palo alto mom,
they are indeed magnet schools, but they are comparable because of the demographics. Gunn functions like a magnet school because of individual students’ achievements. Statistically, there is no difference between a magnet school and the best school in a high parental achieving area. If Gunn high was a magnet school it would have the same school population it has now because its students are already the best in Palo Alto. Even in magnet schools there are underachieving students, not all are top. as Garrison Keillor would say in Palo alto all children are “above average”…..
The difference with many of the better ranked schools is parental level of education and income. It takes much more effort for the average student in Masterman to master a subject than the average Gunn High student.
All I’m getting out of this article is that you need to be in the 35% tax bracket in order for your kid to go to a good school on the peninsula?
Why not just have a school district boundaries based on Section 1(i)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code?
25% – Sequoia HS
28% – Woodside HS
33% – Menlo Atherton
35% – Paly / Gunn
Go Saxons! #47
Folks, top 100 in the nation equates to top 1% of high schools, That’s a pretty impressive honor, regardless if you are 3 or 33, or even 103.
To give some credit to all 9 of the top performing Bay Area schools (especially those in less expensive real estate markets):
Pacific Collegiate School
Santa Cruz County, Santa Cruz, CA
Gold:#7 of 100
Lowell High School
San Francisco County, San Francisco, CA
Gold:#28 of 100
Mission San Jose High School
Alameda County, Fremont, CA
Gold:#36 of 100
Henry M. Gunn High School
Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, CA
Gold:#67 of 100
Monta Vista High School
Santa Clara County, Cupertino, CA
Gold:#70 of 100
Piedmont High School
Alameda County, Piedmont, CA
Gold:#73 of 100
Palo Alto High School
Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, CA
Gold:#83 of 100
Saratoga High School
Santa Clara County, Saratoga, CA
Gold:#93 of 100
Lynbrook High School
Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA
Gold:#98 of 100
I don’t understand how Pacific Collegiate School can have an underprivilege rate of 0.0% and have lottery enrollment. Sounds fishy to me. I have heard rumors of connections getting you in, but that sounds unfair for a pubic school. At lease Lowell there is a test, so poor smart kids get in. In Santa Cruz, it seems just the rich kids get into Pacific Collegiate and the poor kids get the bad schools. Is this just incorrect? Was this statistic wrong? I certainly hope so.
Wiki’d (search: Palo Alto High)
So, taking AP tests and getting top scores on standardized tests == “best” ?!?!? So sad that nothing else matters. How about top 100 schools with music programs, top 100 schools with plumbing apprentice programs, top 100 school for doing charitable work? This approach is so incredibly shallow.
Do you have a better method than the AP or IB? If you have a system to rank high schools that focus on the Arts, vocational ed, or social justice plese share it with us.
I think it’s great that they have a system to rank high schools.
There should be more than one factor used in this kind of analysis–this ranking was a bit better than some earlier ones just because it factored in things like socioeconomic status. Over-relying on test results is pretty primitive.
For example, a school that gives lots of practice tests may well produce higher average test results, but the time in class spent on preparing for and giving those tests means that those same students may be less knowledgeable about a wider range of subjects than students at a school that doesn’t emphasize testing. The second school will have a lower average score, but may well have students better prepared for college.
So tests show something, but they’re less precise measurements than people think of educational quality. So, I’d say there’s a real difference in the quality of education you’d receive in a high school in the top 100 than in the bottom 100, but differences among the top 100 schools aren’t deeply meaningful in terms of how well prepared a given student from one of them will be for college.