U.S. News & World Report has issued its annual survey ranking public high schools throughout the United States and all three Westerville high schools – Central, North, and South – earned Silver Medals. Of the numerous Ohio schools ranked in 2017, 19 were awarded gold medals, 143 earned silver medals and 222 received bronze medals. Rankings are determined through a four-step process, as explained by the publication:
- Step 1 - Students perform better than expected in their state. We looked at reading and math results for students on each state's proficiency tests and then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, who tend to score lower.
- Step 2 -| Disadvantaged students perform better than state average. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students - black, Hispanic and low-income - with the statewide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than their state averages.
- Step 3 - Student graduation rates meet or exceed a national standard. We excluded schools from consideration if their graduation rates were lower than 75 percent - a threshold that is higher than a federal law that requires states to give extra resources to schools below 67 percent.
- Step 4 - Students are prepared for college-level coursework. We calculated a College Readiness Index, which is based on the school's AP participation rate and how well the students did on those tests. Tiebreakers were used to determine ranks of schools that achieved the same College Readiness Index.
Learn more at https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/rankings-overview.