Walter Johnson High School is one of the nation’s top 100 public schools, according to rankings released in August by Newsweek. WJ is ranked at 72nd, a significant improvement from its ranking last year in the low 300s.
WJ’s ranking in “Newsweek’s Top 500 Public Schools Rankings” seemed to be falling until this year. In 2013, WJ was ranked 148th in the country, which dropped to 237th in 2014 and then to 395th in 2015. Walter Johnson rose 323 spots in just one year.
WJ Principal Jennifer Baker posted a tweet in August announcing the news and expressing her excitement for the community.
“I am always happy when our school looks great. In the past couple of years we have been focusing on student achievement and on students are underperforming and I think that our ranking is reflective of that,” WJ Principal Jennifer Baker said.
Three other Montgomery County high schools on the list last year—Walt Whitman, Thomas S. Wootton and Winston Churchill—weren’t included on this year’s list of the top 500 high schools.
“Usually Whitman and Churchill are credited as the best schools in Montgomery County and I am surprised that they were not on the list and we were,” senior Samantha Phillips said.
Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, VA., took the top spot in 2016 for a third year in a row. The school has been a regular powerhouse on previous best schools rankings and puts an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics classes. Thomas Jefferson was also awarded a college readiness of 100.
Walter Johnson and Poolesville were the only two high schools from Montgomery County Public Schools to make the top 500. Poolesville, a whole-school magnet, was the highest ranked public school in Maryland and 32nd in the country, with a 100% graduation rate.
This year, the methodology for choosing and ranking the best public schools in the nation are based on two aspects of school performance: the academic achievement of all students on state assessments in reading and mathematics and the extent to which high schools prepare their students for college.
“I am sure that our [leap in the rankings] didn’t happen all of the sudden, I think that they changed the measurements and the new methodology particularly benefited Walter Johnson,” AP Statistics teacher Brian Fairall said.
The 2016 methodology consists of a multi-step analysis. The first step was to assess schools’ performance within their respective states. For this analysis, Newsweek measured schools’ average proficiency rates on state standardized tests to identify schools that performed above a defined cutoff. Newsweek selected schools that were in the 70th percentile or higher in each state’s performance distribution.
Schools that performed above the defined threshold proceeded to the next step—the “ranking” analysis based on the college readiness data. Newsweek looked at six measurements and weighted them to create a “college readiness index.” The rankings show how well high schools prepare students for college.
“There are different rankings but the Newsweek ranking was particularly high because they changed their methodology and it worked in our favor. The rankings are important but I personally like to see our students grow academically and continue to move in the right direction,” Baker said.
The WJ community is ecstatic about the positive recognition in the Newsweek 2016 rankings. Hopefully Walter Johnson will continue to rise in the rankings for years to come.
