The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, a residential school in Hot Springs for the state’s talented juniors and seniors, is one of the nation’s best public high schools, ranking 13th in a newly published list of the country’s top 2,000 schools.
Eleven other Arkansas schools also were included among the best 2,000 schools for producing college-ready students as ranked by Newsweek and The Daily Beast, a news and opinion website.
Haas Hall Academy charter school in Fayetteville was the next highest ranked Arkansas school, coming in at 83rd.
Fayetteville High was ranked 799th. Bentonville High was ranked 915. LISA Academy charter high school in Little Rock came in at 1,181, followed by Fort Smith’s Southside High at 1,222 and KIPP Delta Collegiate High charter school in Helena-West Helena at 1,235.
Little Rock’s Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High is ranked 1,258 on the list of 2,000 best schools, followed by Little Rock Central High at 1,492, Benton High at 1,641, Pea Ridge High at 1,757 and Dardanelle High at 1,998.
Schools were judged on six components: graduation rate, college acceptance rate, percentage of students enrolled in at least one Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate course, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests taken per student, average scores on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams, and average college entrance exam scores.
The Arkansas math and science school had a 100 percent graduation rate, 100 percent college-acceptance rate, an average ACT college entrance exam score of 26.7, average SAT college entrance exam score of 1779, an average of 1.7 Advanced Placement tests given per student, and an average Advanced Placement score of 4.1 on a scale of 1 to 5.
Bob Gregory, interim director of academic affairs and a mathematics instructor at the Arkansas math and science school, called the school’s ranking a “validation of the hard work put in by the school’s teachers and students every day.”
He said the school’s talented faculty produce an exciting learning environment for students.
“It is great to teach at a place where learning is valued and hard work is the norm.”
Corey Alderdice, the school’s director, said the ranking “is a reflection not only of the education students have received at ASMSA, but of the strong educational foundation students built in their home districts.
“At the core of its mission, ASMSA acts as an extension of the work of each and every high school in the state of Arkansas,” Alderdice said in a prepared statement. “These students excel not only because of the opportunities they have been provided by ASMSA but also because of the preparation and experiences they have pursued at the elementary, middle andearly high school level in their home districts.”
Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Sciences in Bowling Green, Ky., was the top-ranked school in the nation.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 12 on 05/21/2013