SPF, Vo-tech Schools Crowd Newsweek High School List

Newsweek just released its list of the best public high schools in the country and Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School graded out at 769 among the 1,000 schools that made the list.

In addition, three other schools located in Scotch Plains also made the list — Union County Magnet High School (102), Academy for Science and Technology (143), Academy for Allied Health Sciences (167). All three schools are part of the Union County Vocational-Technical School District.

“We are very pleased to see some of our county vocational-technical schools were recognized among the very best in the state and the nation according to Newsweek’s college readiness criteria,” Dr. Philip Guenther, the president of the New Jersey Council of County Vocational-Technical Schools said.

“Today’s county vocational-technical schools attract hard-working, highly motivated students, and the inclusion of seven schools on the Newsweek list is well-deserved recognition of their academic success,” Guenther added.

Elsewhere around Union County's public schools, Elizabeth High School ranked 217, New Providence ranked 224, Summit ranked 251, Cranford ranked 279, Governor Livingston High in Berkeley Heights ranked 498, Westfield High ranked 352, Jonathan Dayton ranked 584 and A.L. Johnson ranked 820 on the list.

Biotechnology High School in Freehold was the highest-ranking school in the Garden State, coming in 20th, followed by Bergen County Academies at 21 and McNair Academy in Jersey City, which earned the 48th spot. Millburn, at 83, is the state's highest-rated public high in the state. To see the New Jersey Schools that earned spots on the list, click here.

Schools must agree to participate in the Newsweek survey; if a school's officials don't agree, the school will not be on the list. No data on which schools didn't agree to be part of the survey was reported.

According to the magazine's story, “This year’s ranking highlights the best 1,000 public high schools in the nation—the ones that have proved to be the most effective in turning out college-ready grads."Schools administrators must provide six components for the rankings; the percentages in parentheses indicate the weight the categories carry in the review process: graduation rate (25 percent), college matriculation rate (25 percent), AP/IB/AICE tests taken per student (25 percent), average SAT/ACT scores (10 percent), average AP/IB/AICE scores (10 percent), and AP courses offered per student (5 percent).

To see the full U.S. list, click here.