Jericho top Long Island high school listed among nation's best

Jericho is again considered Long Island's best public high school and 19 others in the region also rank among the top 1,000 nationwide, according to U.S. News & World Report's annual list released Tuesday. 

Jericho High's ranking on the 2024 list, 114th, is down from 104th last year, out of nearly 18,000 public high schools that U.S. News evaluated. The next four highest-ranked Long Island high schools to make the 2024 list were Garden City, 176th; Manhasset Secondary School, 177th; Great Neck South, 206th; and Syosset, 259th.

Sixteen of the 20 Long Island high schools listed among the best 1,000 in the country are in Nassau County.

Four Suffolk County high schools made the rankings: Cold Spring Harbor, 283rd; Harborfields in Greenlawn, 420th, Half Hollow Hills East in Dix Hills, 421st; and Half Hollow Hills West in Dix Hills, 532nd.

Two Island schools climbed into this year’s top 1,000 rankings: South Side High School in Rockville Centre at 660th and Locust Valley High School at 980th.

Overall, New York ranked ninth in the country on the 2024 list, with 32% of the state's more than 1,200 high schools ranked in the top 25% nationwide. Queens High School for the Sciences at York College, in Jamaica, took the top spot statewide.

Meanwhile, five Long Island schools that made the top 1,000 list in 2023 fell out of the rankings this year. They are Elwood John H. Glenn High School, Babylon Junior-Senior High School, Valley Stream South High School, Earl L. Vandermeulen High School in Port Jefferson and Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick.

School officials could not be contacted before the Tuesday release of the list.

This year’s rankings are based on data largely from the 2021-22 school year and six factors: college readiness, state assessment proficiency as well as performance, underserved student performance, college curriculum breadth and graduation rates.

“The 2024 Best High Schools rankings offer a starting point for parents to understand a school’s academic performance, whether it’s a prospective school or one that their child is already attending,” said LaMont Jones, managing editor of education at U.S. News & World Report, in a statement.

“Accessible data on our high schools can empower families across the country as they navigate today’s educational environment and plan for the future,” Jones said.

BASIS Peoria, a charter school in Arizona, ranked first among all high schools nationwide.

Massachusetts again had the highest percentage of high schools in the top rankings, with nearly 44% in the top 25% nationally, U.S. News found. Connecticut and New Jersey placed second and third, respectively.

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.