U.S. News recently published a national ranking of the best STEM high schools in the country. While U.S. News is a leader when it comes to ranking educational institutions, we can all find minor flaws in the chosen ranking system. However, aside from the ranking aspect of this article, what we found to be very intriguing is the “Overview” section presented once you click on a school name.

Within the “Overview” section of the top five schools you see terms such as:

• Curriculum is engineering centric;
• STEM-focused curriculum;
• Students have the opportunity to take Advanced Placement® coursework and exams;
• Heavy emphasis on math, science, and computer education.

This “Overview” section of the report is the most beneficial and shows us that there is not one “right” way to tech STEM education, but instead that there are many different avenues in which schools can integrate STEM into their current curriculums.

Take a moment and search for your high school on the list, then let us know your thoughts!

Best High Schools for STEM Methodology

To be included in the U.S. News Best High Schools for STEM rankings, a public high school first had to be listed as a gold medal winner in the U.S. News Best High Schools rankings as of May 22, 2012. That meant that nearly 500 ranked high schools were eligible for the STEM rankings using data of their 2010 graduates.

Those eligible schools were next judged nationally on their level of math and science participation and success, using Advanced Placement (AP) STEM test data as the benchmark. The STEM rankings methodology did not rely on any data from the U.S. Department of Education.

-U.S. News