These Illinois High Schools Are Among 2022’s Best: U.S. News

Jeff Arnold
Updated ·3 min read

ILLINOIS ­— Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago is the top school in Illinois and ranks in the top 5 nationally, according to a new national ranking by U.S. News and World Report. This year’s list of the best high schools evaluated more than 17,800 schools nationwide, including more than 600 in Illinois.

The 2022 ranking of the best high schools is intended to show how well the nation’s public schools serve all students, regardless of achievement level, by teaching them basic skills and preparing them for college-level work, according to a news release from U.S. News.

Families can also use the rankings to see how schools compare at the national, state and local levels on factors such as graduation rates and college readiness.

While thousands of schools were evaluated, these Illinois schools were ranked among the top 100 in the country, according to U.S. News:

  • Walter Payton College Prep, Chicago. Ranked 5th

  • Northside College Prep, Chicago. Ranked 31st

  • Jones College Prep, Chicago Ranked 41st

  • Whitney Young Magnet School. Ranked 61st

  • Lane Tech College Prep, Chicago. Ranked 84th.

The top suburban school to make the list was Proviso Math and Science in Forest Park which ranked 181st while Adlai E. Stevenson in Lincolnshire ranked 185th and were the only other schools in Illinois to crack the Top 200 nationally.

This year, the top 15 schools nationally are in 14 different states.

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, was ranked No. 1 in the nation, as well as among magnet schools.

Here are the top 10 schools in this year’s national Best High Schools ranking:

  • Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology - Alexandria, Virginia

  • Academic Magnet High School - North Charleston, South Carolina

  • Signature School - Evansville, Indiana

  • School for Advanced Studies - Miami, Florida

  • Payton College Preparatory High School - Chicago, Illinois

  • The Davidson Academy of Nevada - Reno, Nevada

  • Central Magnet School - Murfreesboro, Tennessee

  • The School for the Talented and Gifted - Dallas, Texas

  • Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology - Lawrenceville, Georgia

  • Julia R. Masterman Secondary School - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This year’s schools were ranked on six measures: college readiness, college curriculum breadth, state assessment performance, state assessment proficiency, reading and math proficiency, reading and math performance, underserved student performance, and graduation rates.

The data used in this year’s ranking is from the 2019-20 academic school year. U.S. News adjusted its calculation of these measures to account for the impact COVID-19 had on schools in the 2019-20 school year.

Since most states closed schools for in-person instruction starting in March 2020 — typically just before most states conduct assessments — the U.S. Department of Education granted waivers allowing all states to forgo state testing for the 2019-20 school year.

To account for this, U.S. News relied on past assessment data from the three prior ranking years. Researchers also incorporated state science assessment data from the 2018-19 school year.

Read more about the Best High Schools methodology.

In addition to the national rankings, U.S. News also published rankings at the state, metro area, and school district levels. Only metro areas and school districts with three or more high schools were included in these sub rankings.

Signature School in Indiana is at the top of the list for charter schools, and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia is the No. 1 magnet school. The Davidson Academy of Nevada is the top STEM school.

This article originally appeared on the Across Illinois Patch