Parma High School ranks among nation's best

Parma High School Ranks Among Nation's Best

U.S. News & World Report recognizes school for efforts to help struggling students

January 9, 2008 – Christin Runkle –IDAHO PRESS TRIBUNE
PARMA – According to U.S. News & World Report, Parma High School is one of the top public high schools in the nation.  In its Best High Schools 2008 report, U.S. News gave Parma High a bronze medal. 

Parma School District Superintendent Jim Norton said he was “very excited” when he got word of Parma’s success in the rankings.

“We’ve been focusing a lot of energy on meeting the needs of students who’ve been struggling.” Norton said “I think those efforts are paying off.

The school was one of 21 Idaho high schools to receive the bronze medal and the only Canyon County School to receive one.  Meridian Charter High School was the only other Treasure Valley School to win the award.

No Idaho schools received gold or silver medals.

In all, U.S. News & World Report analyzed 18,790 public high schools across 40 states.  Using testing data from the 2005-2006 school year, the magazine measured schools in two areas: whether a school’s students were performing better than statistically expected for students in that state, and whether the school’s least-advantaged students were performing better than average for similar students in the state.  Schools that passed both areas were judged in a third area, the degree to which schools prepared students for college-level work.

This area was analyzed using Advanced Placement data, and the 505 highest-performing schools in the third area were awarded gold and silver medals.  More than 1,000 schools that passed the first two areas were awarded bronze medals.

Schools in 10 states and the District of Columbia were not analyzed because they either didn’t make their state test data available or they provided insufficient assessment data.