More than 20 percent of California’s top public high schools are located directly in Silicon Valley or in neighboring areas to the south and west, according to the latest annual rankings by US News & World Report.
In fact, the top two local schools are in Gilroy and Santa Cruz. In Gilroy, Dr. T.J. Owens Gilroy Early College Academy takes third place in the state while Pacific Collegiate Charter in Santa Cruz comes in fourth. Nationally, the two schools place 42nd and 44th, respectively.
Among public schools located directly in Silicon Valley, Mission San Jose High in Fremont took 12th place in the state and 90th nationally while Monta Vista High School in Cupertino took 13th in the state and 96th across the nation, according to the magazine’s ranking released Tuesday.
In all, 21 schools in the coverage area of the Silicon Valley Business Journal were among the top ranked schools in California.
US News says it reached its conclusions after studying a number of factors, including how the schools ranked in U.S. Department of Education standards, California math and reading tests, high school graduation rates, college board test results and other factors.
US News noted that 2019’s school rankings cannot be compared with previous years: “The primary reason is that new methodology is completely different from the past and that any high school’s ranking and performance in the new ranking can’t be compared with its ranking or not being ranked before using the old methodology,” a US News release said.
In all, the publication ranked 17,245 high schools across the United States, compared with 5,950 schools evaluated in 2018.
By ranking more than the highest-performing schools, U.S. News shows a far broader spectrum of how all high schools compare and gives users a more complete picture of choices in their communities, the publication said.
By J. Jennings Moss – Editor-in-Chief and General Manager, Silicon Valley Business JournalApr 30, 2019, 6:55am PDT
