BoMag Says LHS is the Second Best High School In and Around Boston

A hat tip is in order for for landing the No. 2 spot on Boston Magazine’s Best Schools of 2012 list. 

The regional magazine based its rankings on data collected in more than a dozen categories, including things like test scores, per pupil expenditures and the number of AP classes, sports, clubs and student-teacher ratio. 

Lexington finished a close second to Weston High, a district with reportedly higher per-pupil expenditures and which sends a greater percentage of students to college than LHS, but which falls just short of Lexington when it comes to test scores and number of sports, AP classes and clubs offered here. That's all according to BoMag's evaluation.

Rounding out the top five high schools on Boston Magazine’s list—which includes 222 schools inside of 495—are Dover-Sherborn, Concord-Carlisle and Wellesley High. Lexington has by far the highest enrollment among those schools.

Breaking down the numbers a little further, Concord-Carlisle had the highest percentage of students achieving proficiency on AP exams, with 98.7 percent. Finishing the top five were Acton-Boxboro, Lincoln-Sudbury, Lexington High (95.2 percent) and Newton South, and all five checked in with a very respectable proficiency rate of 95 percent or greater.

According to BoMag, in determining the Best of Schools of 2012, the most weight was given to academics, including performance on MCAS, SATs, and AP exams. Graduation rates and the percentage of students who go to college were also considered, while this year the magazine “dialed back—slightly—the importance placed on student-teacher ratio and per-pupil spending, because while they do contribute to learning, recent studies show that they’re not educational silver bullets.” The number of sports and clubs offered are also considered.

So with that in mind, what do you think? Are you OK with Lexington's rank as the second-best high school in and around Boston, or do you think this district is second-to-none? Let us know in the comment section below.