Newnan High School has received a silver medal national ranking in the U.S. News and World Report’s 2013 Best High Schools report, placing the school in the top 8 percent of the nation’s public, charter and magnet schools.
The magazine rated 21,035 high schools from across the nation. As a result of that ranking Newnan High placed at 1,680 nationally, in the top 8 percent of high schools in the nation. Newnan High also ranked 34th in the state of Georgia, putting the school in the top 8 percent of all Georgia high schools, including public, charter and magnet schools.
Newnan High School’s national silver ranking by U.S. News and World report is due to the school’s track record of producing achievement across a wide range of students, said Coweta County School system spokesman Dean Jackson.
“I’m proud that Newnan High can be recognized like this at the national and state level for the hard work our teachers and students are doing here,” said Dr. Doug Moore, principal of Newnan High School. “Our teaching staff is dedicated to high standards of achievement among all of our students, and that’s true of all the high schools in our county.”
For the survey, U.S. News and World Report analyzed public high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia to arrive at the rankings. Nebraska did not provide enough information to be included in the evaluation.
“U.S. News teamed up with the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research (AIR), one of the largest behavioral and social science research organizations in the world. AIR implemented U.S. News’s comprehensive rankings methodology, which is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college-bound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators,” according to the U.S. News website.
The report noted that 97 percent of Newnan High School students were proficient in math and 94 percent were proficient in English, according to state testing results. A high percentage of students, totaling 28 percent, took Advanced Placement courses, and a high percentage of students passed AP exams. Significantly, 71 percent of the students taking AP exams during the year surveyed scored a 3, 4 or 5 on AP exams, scores accepted as credit for similar college courses, Jackson said.
“Newnan High School ranked at a 21.9 on the report’s college readiness index. The national ranking is 14.8,” noted Newnan High School Assistant Principal Chase Puckett. “That is something that our faculty is very proud of. It shows that we have been moving towards greater college and career readiness with our students here at Newnan High.”
Puckett said there has been a strategic move in the county and at Newnan High School to increase participation in advanced level classes and Advanced Placement classes.
“Our teachers have worked hard to identify ways that our students can be successful with rigorous courses and in all aspects of their high school experience and I think we have been successful with that. We have expectations that our students should be successful academically, artistically and athletically. And in terms of community service, all pieces of the high school experience are important,” Puckett said.
