Gwinnett Daily Post

Eight Gwinnett County Public Schools and Buford High have been ranked among the top schools in the state by a national magazine. U.S. News and World Report’s Best High Schools list was released this week, with 38 Georgia schools making the grade in a selection process that involved ranking schools based on how well the facility served students, using performance on state proficiency tests as benchmarks.

Savannah Arts Academy in Chatham County was ranked No. 1 in the state and was the only Georgia school to make the national list of top 100 schools. The magazine also ranked high schools within each state, with the following Gwinnett schools earning top honors: Duluth, No. 10; Norcross; No. 12; Parkview, No. 14; Peachtree Ridge, No. 15; Berkmar, No. 17; Buford, No. 18; Central Gwinnett, No. 20; Meadowcreek, No. 22; and Shiloh, No. 30.

Gwinnett County Public Schools Board Member Dan Seckinger said he was “proud of the schools.”

“I think there should have been even more on the list than that, but I’m very proud of those that made it.”

Buford High School Principal Banks Bitterman said it was “exciting news” that Buford High School made the list. “I’m extremely proud of our faculty and kids for this accomplishment,” he said.

In order to produce the list, the U.S. News and World Report teamed up with one of the largest behavioral and social science research organizations in the world.

According to the U.S. News and World Report, the organization used a methodology for rankings “based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college bound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.”

In order to compile the list, the magazine examined 21,776 public high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia.