U.S. News & World Report has named Jamesville-DeWitt High School one of the best high schools in the nation and tops in the Syracuse area.
In its 2021 Best High School rankings released on April 27, U.S. News ranked J-D High School 770th nationally out of 17,857 public high schools and 73rd out of 1,218 high schools in New York state. It is ranked first in the Syracuse area out of 41 high schools.
Top-ranked schools have a high rate of students who scored above expectations in math and reading state assessments, passed an array of college-level exams and graduated in four years, according to U.S. News.
The ranking methodology uses state education data from the 2018-2019 school year, and additional data was provided by The College Board and International Baccalaureate on their respective college-prep programs, Advanced Placement and IB, according to U.S. News.
To produce the rankings, U.S. News teamed up with RTI International, a global nonprofit social science research firm. RTI implemented the U.S. News rankings methodology, which includes rating the following six measures:
- College readiness, based on the proportions of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score on AP and/or IB exams;
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College curriculum breadth, based on proportions of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score on AP and/or IB exams in multiple content areas;
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Math and reading proficiency, based on student performance on state-required tests;
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Math and reading performance, based on whether performance on state assessments exceeded expectations given the school’s proportion of underserved students;
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Underserved student performance, based on how Black, Hispanic and low-income students performed on state assessments compared with those who are not underserved in the state; and
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Graduation rate, based on the proportion of students who entered ninth grade in 2015-2016 and graduated four years later.