Two of the top ten high schools in Kansas are in the Shawnee Mission School District, according to the latest rankings from U.S. News and World Report, which were released Tuesday.
Shawnee Mission East came in fifth in Kansas in the magazine’s 2017 Best High Schools rankings. Shawnee Mission South came in tenth.
Only the Blue Valley School District, which had all five of its high schools among the top ten, fared better. Blue Valley North was the top rated school in the state, followed by Blue Valley High, Blue Valley Southwest and Blue Valley West, to round out the top four. Blue Valley northwest came in at number six.
Northeast Magnet High School was the only Sedgwick County institution to make the top ten, coming in at number seven. It was followed by Lawrence Free State and Olathe Northwest in places nine and ten.
U.S. News compiles its annual rankings based on a number of factors, including reading and math scores on state proficiency tests, the performance of historically disadvantaged student groups, graduation rates, and Advanced Placement test participation rate and performance.
No Kansas high school earned a Gold Award, which marks the top 500 schools in the country based primarily on college readiness measures. All of the schools in Kansas’s top 10, however, did earn the Silver Award, which goes to schools whose students show above average college readiness. The rankings included data from more than 22,000 public high schools. Only around 2,300 received the Silver Award distinction.
Blue Valley North’s ratings put it at number 790 among all of the schools considered in the ranking. SM East is number 1,350 in the national rankings, and SM South is number 1,780.