By Naeisha Rose
Townsend Harris and the Queens High School for the Sciences at York College in Queens are among the top 10 high schools in the city, scoring above all but one of the selective high schools, according to the U.S. News & World Report’s 2017 annual list.
The rop ranked school was High School of American Studies at Lehman College in the Bronx.
Flushing-based Townsend ranked sixth on the list followed by the Queens High School for Sciences in Jamaica in seventh place. The Bronx High School of Science was in the No. 8 spot, Brooklyn Technical High School came in at No. 10 on the list and Stuyvesant High School was in 11th place. Admission to American Studies, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech and Stuyesant is based on scores on the specialized high schools test.
U.S. News ranked schools with more than 15 students across the country by high performance on state assessment tests, how a school’s disadvantaged students fared on those tests compared to the state average, graduation rates and the college readiness index, or CRI, according to its website. To score well on the CRI a school must have scored 20.91 or more, which is the national average for the quality-adjusted Advanced Placement participation rate.
The computations were based on results from the 2014-2015 enrollment and performance of high school seniors across the country, according to the U.S. News Report.
The top 500 schools across the country that exceeded the first three criteria and scored well above 20.91 like Townsend Harris at 93.9 and Queens High School for the Sciences at 93.8 received a gold medal, according to U.S. News.
Not only are Townsend Harris and Queens High School gold medal schools, they were ranked No. 7 and 8 in New York state and 44 and 45 nationally, according to the list.
Townsend Harris seniors all took at least one AP course and 90 percent of them passed it, according to the U.S. News scorecard. The students were 99 percent proficient in math and 100 percent proficient in English in statewide exams.
There were 1,133 Townsend seniors, 78 percent of who were minorities and 54 percent were considered economically disadvantaged, according to the U.S. News school profile. The school also had a 100 percent graduation rate.
All of the seniors at Queens High School for the Science at York College took an AP course and 88 percent of them passed. The school had 98 percent of its students proficient in math.
There were 426 seniors and 94 percent of them were minorities and 65 percent were disadvantaged, according to the U.S. News school profile.
Schools that met the first three criteria and scored at or above the first median CRI value were awarded silver medals, according to the report:
Academy of American Studies
Bayside High School
Francis Lewis High School
Academy of Finance and Enterprise
Queen Gateway to Health Sciences Secondary School
East-West School of International Studies
Forest Hills High School
Academy for Careers in Television and Film
Maspeth High School
Robert F. Kennedy Community High School and the Aviation Career and Technical High School
The next top schools in Queens that scored below the CRI or lacked AP courses received bronze medals in this order:
Jamaica Gateway to the Sciences
Thomas Edison Career and Technical High School
Civic Leadership Academy
High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture
Information Technology High School
Excelsior Preparatory High School
Reach Naeisha Rose by e-mail at nrose
