Dublin High – One of America’s Top Public High Schools (Newsweek)

OneDublin.org, working with the Dublin Unified School District, can confirm that based on 2009 results Dublin High will be included in Newsweek’s 2010 list of America’s Top Public High Schools that represents the top 6% of public schools (including charter schools) nationwide.  Newseek’s list is prepared by Jay Mathews of the Washington Post and published by Newsweek annually.  In 2009, 95% of Dublin High grads reported attending college and Dublin High’s API score increased 44 points to 842 [UPDATE 9-13-2010: Dublin High’s API in 2010 increased to 868, a 26 point gain over 2009].  Only 6% of public schools make the Newsweek list – a prestigious achievement (but no surprise for Dublin High staff, parents, students and graduates). [Update – on July 18 OneDublin.org confirmed the inclusion of Dublin High School on the America’s Best High Schools list for 2010.]

Jay Mathews, having received Dublin High’s 2009 results (summarized below), responded as follows: “You absolutely qualify and will be on the 2010 list.”

The key criteria used for inclusion in this list is that the number of Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2009 divided by the number of graduating seniors must be at least 1.0.

In 2009, there were 351 Dublin High graduates.  363 AP exams were administered to 241 students in grades 10-12.  This produces an index of 1.034, qualifying Dublin High as one of America’s Top Public High Schools.  Dublin High offers 21 Advanced Placement (AP), Advanced and Honors classes for Dublin students as well as three diploma options (including the recently announced Dublin High Advanced Scholars Diploma).  Academic choice is one reason Dublin High graduates receive offers of early acceptance into college.

The Newsweek results also look at other attributes such as:

• “Subs. Lunch rate” (As per Newsweek, “Subs. Lunch” stands for the percentage of students who qualify for federally subsidized lunches, the best measure of the percentage of low-income students at each school.)  Dublin High’s Subs. Lunch rate for 2009 was 10%.
• “Equity and Excellence rate” (As per Newsweek: “the percentage of all graduating seniors, including those who never got near an AP course, who had at least one score of 3 or above on at least one AP test sometime in high school”)  Dublin High’s Equity and Excellence rate for 2009 was 22% – higher than the average of 15.2% from Newsweek’s 2008 list.

A more detailed summary of Jay Mathews’ approach for the Newsweek list is available here.