Alabama high schools ranked by U.S. News: Montgomery takes top and bottom spots
U.S. News & World Report released its list of the 2024 Best U.S. High Schools this week. Both Alabama's highest- and lowest-ranking schools are in Montgomery.
Loveless Academic Magnet Program High School took the No. 21 spot nationally and correspondingly placed No. 1 in the state. Meanwhile, all of MPS' traditional high schools are among those tied for last place in the state.
LAMP hasn't fallen below second place in the last decade, typically competing with Mountain Brook High School. This year, though, a Huntsville's magnet New Century Tech Demo High School earned second place, only ranking No. 282 nationally.
From there, the order goes: Homewood High School, Mountain Brook High School, Vestavia Hills High School to round out the top five.
"A great high school educates all of its students from different social and economic backgrounds, exposing them to challenging coursework on the path to graduation," U.S. News & World Report analysts Robert Morse, Eric Brooks and Owen Turnbull said in a statement.
They scored and ranked nearly 18,000 public high schools across the country using six key indicators — which were college readiness, college curriculum breadth, state assessment proficiency, state assessment performance, underserved student performance and graduation rate.
Montgomery's top schools
Joining LAMP among Alabama's top 20 high schools are BrewTech at No. 9 and Booker T. Washington at No. 16.
Notably, all Montgomery Public Schools in the top half of the state rankings are magnets.
All three schools remain in the exact same rank they earned in 2023. Other commonalities included high Advanced Placement participation and over 65% in reading proficiency.
Every single student at LAMP took at least one AP exam last year, and 87% of students passed at least one AP exam. LAMP also saw significantly higher reading and math proficiencies than other high-achieving high schools in the state, at 100% and 96%, respectively.
For comparison, the No. 2 New Century Tech Demo High School had 66% reading proficiency and 67% math proficiency.
BrewTech's data falls slightly lower, with 66% of students proficient in reading and 55% of students proficient in math. The school is designated as a STEM magnet. There, 69% of students took at least one AP exam and 25% passed at least one.
In BTW, Montgomery's arts-focused magnet, the reading proficiency rate is 69% and the math proficiency rate is 33%. About 37% of BTW students took at least one AP exam last year, and 20% passed at least one.
Where the rest landed
Pike Road High School and Prattville High School fell into the group of schools that were not the best, but not the worst either. Elmore County High School and Wetumpka High School are also in these group.
Pike Road reported a 43% proficiency in reading and 26% in math, receiving a 24 on the college readiness scale. Prattville saw a 36% reading proficiency rate, a 26% in math and a high 81% graduation rate.
In all, 93 schools sit at the very bottom of Alabama's list, all tying for last place. Included among this category are all of MPS' traditional high schools: G.W. Carver, Johnson Abernathy Graetz High School, Sidney Lanier High School, Percy Julian High School and Park Crossing High School.
None had a college readiness score greater than 4.8 out of 100, and all had very low AP participation.
Overall ranking of Montgomery high schools
Here is the ranking of public high schools in the Montgomery area, according to U.S. News & World Report. The bottom eight schools tied for last place, all receiving scores lower than a 25 out of 100.
Loveless Academic Magnet Program High School
Brewbaker Technology Magnet High School
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School
Elmore County High School
Wetumpka High School
Holtville High School
Pike Road High School
Stanhope Elmore High School
Prattville High School
Tallassee High School
Edge Virtual School
Calhoun High School
Tie: Billingsley High School
Tie: G.W. Carver High School
Tie: Central High School
Tie: Johnson Abernathy Graetz High School, still listed as Jefferson Davis High School
Tie: Sidney Lanier High School
Tie: Percy Julian High School, still listed as Lee High School
Tie: Marbury High School
Tie: Park Crossing High School
Hadley Hitson covers children's health, education and welfare for the Montgomery Advertiser. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Montgomery high schools ranked: U.S. News & World Report releases list
