National Rankings: Best High Schools

    The U.S. News rankings include data on more than 22,000 public high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Schools were awarded gold, silver or bronze medals based on their performance on state assessments and how well they prepare students for college.

    About the Awards

    Gold—Top 500 Schools based on highest college readiness.

    Silver—High-performing schools based on lower college readiness.

    Bronze—High-performing schools based on state exam performance,  listed alphabetically.

    Award Distribution

    Gold 2.4%

    Silver 10.3%

    Bronze 16.8%

    No Medal 70.5%

    HOW We Determine the Awards

    STEP 1 Students perform better than expected in their state.

    We looked at reading and math results for students on each state's proficiency(水平) tests and then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, who tend to score lower.

    STEP 2 Disadvantaged students perform better than state average.

    We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students--black, Hispanic and low-income—with the state wide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than their state averages.

    STEP 3 Student graduation rates meet or are greater than a national standard.

    We left out schools from consideration if their graduation rates were lower than 75 percent--a starting point that is higher than a federal law that requires states to give extra resources to schools below 67 percent.

    STEP 4 Students are prepared for college-level coursework.

    We calculated a College Readiness Index,which is based or the school's AP participation rate and how well the students did on those tests. Tiebeakers were used to determine ranks of schools that achieved the same College Readiness Index.

    Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination and physical, cognitive（认知的）, and emotional strength. Play is important to healthy brain development. Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles. Undirected play allows children to learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, and to resolve conflicts.

    Ideally, much of play involves adults, but when play is controlled by adults, children acquiesce（顺从）to adult rules and concerns and lose some of the benefits play offers them, particularly in developing creativity, leadership, and group skills. In contrast to passive entertainment, play builds active, healthy bodies. In fact, it has been suggested that encouraging unstructured play may be an exceptional way to increase physical activity levels in children, which is one important strategy in the resolution of the obesity problem.

    Children's development is critically influenced by appropriate, affective relationships with loving and consistent caregivers as they relate to children through play. When parents observe their children in play or join with them in child-driven play, they are given a unique opportunity to see the world from their children's vantage point as the child navigates a world perfectly created just to fit his or her needs. The interactions that occur through play tell children that parents are fully paying attention to them and help to build enduring relationships. Parents who have the opportunity to look at their children's world learn to communicate more effectively with their children aid are given another setting to offer guidance. Less verbal children may be able to express their views, giving their parents an opportunity to gain a fuller understanding of their perspective. Quite simply, play offers parents a wonderful opportunity to engage fully with their children.

    Play is essential to the academic environment. It ensures that the school setting attends to the social and emotional development of children as well as their cognitive development. It has been shown to help children adjust to the school setting and even to strengthen children's learning willingness. Social-emotional learning is best integrated（融合）with academic learning; it is concerning if some of the forces that enhance children's ability to learn are improved at the expense of others. Play and unscheduled time that allow for peer interactions are important components of social-emotional learning.

    Robert is a boss who hires me as a helper.He has lost his house and now has to live back at home,with his mother,at 46.

    We had a job in Fort Bending.Robert bought me breakfast there.As we were leaving,a man walked to us asking if he could get some work from Roberts' company.Robert explained there was no work for the man and the man started to walk away.As I looked at the man leaving from Robert,I saw Robert taking out some money and went after the man to gave it to him.I asked Robert,"Why did you do that?"Robert said "He really had bad luck—what does a few dollars matter?"

    After a very long,hard day,we stopped at a Quick Trip for a soda.I got through the checkout ahead of Robert and went back out to the work truck.Beside the truck was a woman in a car.She had 3 kids and asked me if I could help—she had been evicted and had nowhere to go with her children.They were living in the car.I told her I was also hurting in these times,so I could not.Robert came out,opened the work truck and we got in.I told him about the lady.I didn't even finish the story when Robert was out his door around the truck and gave the women money to help them out.When Robert returned I asked,"Why did you do that,she didn't even ask you".He said,“I have an ex-wife（前妻）and a kid.If they need help and I am not able,someone will help them”.

    Do you have a spare room in your house? What about a driveway for your car? Both of these can help you make money. Many people who are feeling the pinch are taking advantage of what's been called the “sharing economy”.

Perhaps the best-known example of a company in this field is Airbnb—an American web business which allows you to rent out your spare room to holidaymakers. It says it operates in 34,000 cities and it has over 1,500,000 listings.It seems to have concerned the market!

A British company is doing something with parking spaces. JustPark's founder, Anthony Eskinazi, says,“When I had the original idea, Ispotted a driveway close to a sports stadium. It would have been so convenient if I could have just parked in that driveway rather than in commercial car park.” And he has a big clientele（客户）:around 20,000 people have advertised their spaces on the site, and he says around half a million drivers use it. There are other sites doing very similar things, like Uber and Lyft—these let drivers share their cars with other passengers. Any driver knows how valuable a place to park is .A church near Kings Cross in central London has apparently made over £200,000 by renting out space in its yard to travelers!

    Because this is a new business world, those rules aren't there yet and many people are happy to share...as long as it pays!

    But the sharing economy has its critics: the competitors of these new companies. People who run things like traditional B&B, commercial car parks and taxi services are afraid of ending up out of pocket. And there is another issue: regulations on these new business are unclear. How will renting out your driveway affect your neighbor?

Love, success, happiness, family and freedom—how important are these values to you? Here is one interview which explores the fundamental questions in life.

     Question: Could you introduce yourself first?

     Answer: My name is Misbah, 27 years old. I was born in a war-torn area. Right now I'm a web designer.

     Q: What are your great memories?

     A: My parents used to take us to hunt birds, climb trees, and play in the fields. For me it was like a holiday because we were going to have fun all day long. Those are my great memories.

     Q: Does your childhood mean a lot to you?

     A: Yes. As life was very hard, I used to work to help bring money in for the family. I spent my childhood working, with responsibilities beyond my age. However, it taught me to deal with problems all alone. I learnt to be independent.

     Q: What changes would you like to make in your life?

     A: If I could change something in my life, I'd change it so that my childhood could have taken place in another area. I would have loved to live with my family in freedom. Who cares whether we have much money, or whether we have a beautiful house? It doesn't matter as long as I can live with my family and we are safe.

     Q: How do your get along with your parents?

     A: My parents supported me until I came of age. I want to give back what I've got. That's our way. But I am working in another city. My only contact with my parents now is through the phone, but I hate using it. It filters(过滤) out your emotion and leaves your voice only. My deepest feelings should be passed through sight, hearing and touch.

This was no ordinary class. The students who came together were all science or engineering professors at Cornell University. They had interrupted their research to accept an invitation to take part in an unusual experiment: "an interesting week of poetry". This class was part of a study to answer the questions: Why is science difficult for many non-science students? What can teachers learn about teaching if they take a class that is not in their field? 

The students in the poetry class listened to lectures and took notes. They had reading tasks and had to write three short papers. All students noticed one thing—the importance of spoken words. In science and engineering classes, the instructors put tables and drawings on the blackboard. But in this poetry class, the instructors just talked. They didn't write anything on the board.

The scientists and engineers noticed one similarity between science and poetry. In both subjects, students need to find layers of meaning. Some layers are simple, clean, and on the surface;   other layers are deeper and more difficult. This search for different levels of meaning doesn't happen much in undergraduate science classes, but it is important later, in a graduate school. And it is always important in humanities (人文学科).

Both the poetry instructors and their students learned something about teaching from this experience. One poetry instructor, for example, now sees the importance of using careful, clear definitions when he explains a poem. He also plans to be more informative as he teaches. Most of the scientists agreed on several points. Firstly, humanities classes might help science students to see patterns and decide which information is important. Secondly, the poetry class was fun. One engineer decided, "We need to change the way we teach engineering to make it an enjoyable experience for students."

But perhaps the most important result of the experience was this: all of the professors began to think about how they teach and how they can teach better.