• Metro, Clayton, Kirkwood high schools top rankings

    April 23, 2013 3:14 pm • By Jessica Bock jbock@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8228

    Seven high schools in the St. Louis region ranked in the top 10 statewide, according to the U.S. News & World Report’s annual look at the nation’s best.

    Metro (a city magnet school), Clayton, Kirkwood, Marquette and Eureka high schools were the top 5 in Missouri in the results released Tuesday. Lindbergh came in at No. 7 on the list, with Parkway South landing ninth in the state.

    The methodology for the rankings uses a school’s overall performance on state tests for reading and math. The study looks at whether students are performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state, and factors in the percentage of economically disadvantaged and minority students at the school. For schools that made it past this point, the next step measured which schools produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students by looking at Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate participation rates.

    Kirkwood moved up to its No. 3 spot on the statewide list. Pattonville High made the rankings for the first time this year, earning a silver medal and the No. 19 spot.

    And after disappearing from the rankings last year, Ladue Horton Watkins High School failed to show up again.

    Last year, administrators thought it was because most of their students take an Algebra I end-of-course exam as eighth-graders. District spokeswoman Susan Dielmann said administrators were taking another look at this year’s rankings and studying the methodology to determine where the district fell short.

    Ladue points to its ACT scores — which consistently rank high statewide — as indicators of quality and college preparedness.

    The national rankings have been criticized for what they don’t take into account: How students actually did in college after they graduated from high school.

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