Community Corner
Cheshire High School Cracks 'Best High School' List in New Study
The school ranked 30th out of nearly 200 in the state and earned a silver award in gaining a national ranking.
Cheshire students have a leg up on the competition these days, at least when it comes to life beyond high school and the education they receive.
Cheshire High School was named as one of Connecticut’s “Best High Schools” in the 2013 rankings by U.S World & News Report, placing 30th on a list of 196 high schools across the state and being named a "Silver Award" school by national standards.
Under the annual rankings of public high schools conducted by the magazine, Cheshire was one of only 24 in Connecticut that earned a Silver Award and was one of only 35 to be ranked "best" by the magazine. Cheshire High School also received a national ranking of 1,335 out of 21,035 public high schools.
Not bad. Not bad indeed.
The state and national rankings are based on several criteria, including the college readiness of each high school’s student body, how well the schools teach all of its students — including those who are economically disadvantaged — and how all students perform on certain standardized tests. The magazine did not include private or parochial schools in the rankings, but did include charter and magnet schools.
Cheshire High School boasts a student to teacher ratio of 14 to 1 and students scored a 4.1 in math proficiency, a 4.0 in reading proficiency and the school earned a 27 on the college readiness index.
Only schools that earned a top award distinction by the magazine — gold and silver — were ranked as “best,” and there were 35 such schools in Connecticut.
Eleven Connecticut high schools, including the following top ten were given Gold Awards as best schools in the country. The top 10 best high schools in the state, as ranked by U.S. World & News Report are:
- Darien High School
- Conard High School, West Hartford
- Weston High School
- Ridgefield High School
- Farmington High School
- Wilton High School
- Staples High School, Westport
- William H. Hall High School, West Hartford
- Joel Barlow High School, Redding
- Connecticut International Baccalaureate Academy, East Hartford
Four other Connecticut high schools were given Bronze Awards by the magazine, but because they did not meet all three ranking criteria — a college readiness index of at least 14.8, performing above the state average for their least advantaged students and high performance on college-level advanced placement tests — they did not receive a ranking of “Best High School.”
For a complete look at all of the state's schools, click the link provided.
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