Walton High School has been named one of the Top 10 public high schools in Georgia by U.S. News, but other East Cobb high schools also fared well in the annual rankings that were released on Wednesday.
Walton comes in at No. 9 on the Georgia list, the highest-ranked Cobb County high school. Nationally, Walton is listed at No. 314, as well as No. 96 among charter schools and No. 144 among STEM schools across the country.
The next-ranked Cobb high school in Georgia is Lassiter at No. 21, followed by Pope at No. 26 and Wheeler at No. 49.
Kell and Sprayberry were not ranked statewide or nationally by U.S. News, which included 450 Georgia high schools in its rankings.
In the magnet school rankings, Wheeler ranks No. 230 nationally.
U.S. News basis its rankings on a variety of academic measurements, and explains its methodology here.
However, U.S. News has come in for criticism for its high school rankings (as well as college rankings it also releases annually).
Last year, the American Enterprise Institute wrote that too much emphasis is placed on Advanced Placement results, concluding that the “rankings promote the notion that the best high schools are the ones with the highest outcomes.”
The Atlantic has written previously that the U.S. News high school rankings, which began in 1998, are harmful and have a formula that’s too simplistic.
The Cobb County School District eagerly shared the news on its social media channels on Thursday, noting that eight of the 16 high schools in the system were included in the national rankings.
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