Mount Vernon High School was ranked the 22nd best school in the State of Iowa and third best school in the Cedar Rapids Metro by U.S. News and World Report. Nationally, the school was ranked 3,348th.
Mount Vernon superintendent Greg Batenhorst said that Mount Vernon also ranked in the top 20 percent of all high schools in the nation, and with the Iowa placement, ranks in the top 6 percent in schools statewide.
“The indicators on which Mount Vernon High School excels are in the areas of academic achievement and academic growth,” Batenhorst said. “The methodology used by the U.S. News and World Report provides rankings based on academic data, and does not even consider the great things done at Mount Vernon High School in the areas of fine arts and athletics.”
Batenhorst went on to say when the fine arts and athletics are included, it highlights Mount Vernon as a special place for students to learn and grow.
This result highlights the earlier high performances by Mount Vernon schools on the Iowa School Performance Profile, where two schools were noted as high performing schools, and Mount Vernon Middle School as exceptional, the highest designation available.
“This is even more impressive given how teaching and learning have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years,” Batenhorst said. “And none of this is possible without extraordinary support from our great parents and community members.”
Lisbon High School ranked No. 13 in the Cedar Rapids Metro area and 174th in Iowa High Schools rankings. Nationally, the school was ranked 12,159th.
Methodology on the ranking systems –
U.S. News and World Report worked with RTI International for the data that would rank schools compared to others in the nation and the state. The group ranked approximately 17,840 high schools out of the 24,000 reviewed.
Because of COVID-19, U.S. News had to adjust calculations to account for the impacted 2019-2020 school years. U.S. News relied on historic assessment data from three prior ranking years.
Scores were weighted in the following areas – college readiness (30 percent of a school’s score), college curriculum breadth (10 percent), state assessment proficiency (20 percent), state assessment performance (20 percent), underserved student performance (10 percent) and graduation rate (10 percent).
For all six ranking indicators, each school’s scores were standardized about their means and divided by their standard deviations to account for statistical variance. For example, the difference between an 89% graduation rate and an 85% graduation rate may not seem like much on an absolute basis, but it matters significantly on a relative basis for the rankings because the national average graduation rate, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, is around 86%, and many schools’ graduation rates fall close to that proportion.
Weights were selected based on research and coordination between U.S. News and education experts at RTI on which factors matter most. State assessments contribute most to the rankings because data was used for every school. Additionally, states are known to place greater stock on these scores than on graduation rates when assessing schools.