Fair Lawn Makes 'America's Best High Schools' List for Fifth Straight Year

Fair Lawn High School is among the most effective high schools in the country at preparing students for college, according to Newsweek's annual list of "America's Best High Schools."

Despite dropping a couple hundreds spots in each of the past two years, Fair Lawn remains among the top 1,000 schools in the nation. The high school ranked 876th nationally, 66th in New Jersey and 14th in Bergen County in Newsweek's 2013 list, released earlier this month.

The magazine ranked Fair Lawn 649th in the country and 52nd in the state among public high schools in 2012, and 400th in the country and 33rd in the state in 2011.

Superintendent Bruce Watson said he was pleased with the rankings, and wasn't sweating slipping a couple hundred spots on the list.

“I don’t care if we’re 900 or 22," he said. "We’re in the best 3 percent of the schools in the country. I think that alone is an honor.”

Watson said the school was hurt by a slight change in Newsweek's methodology and in the way the state calculates graduation rate.

This year, instead of basing a portion of its ranking on the total number of Advanced Placement courses offered — a metric by which Fair Lawn scores very highly — Newsweek instead used the percentage of students enrolled in AP or IB courses.

The school's graduation rate, reported as 95 percent, also hurt its ranking, Watson said. Graduation rates are calculated by dividing the number of graduates by the number of ninth graders who started at the school four years earlier, while accounting for transfers in and out. It does not account for students who took longer than four years to graduate, which Watson said happens on occasion with transfers or special needs students on Individualized Education Programs. As a result, the high school's graduation rate appears artificially low, he said.

Newsweek's "America's Best High Schools," list is generated based on six components provided by public school administrators. About half of the 5,000 schools the magazine invites to participate respond with self-reported data that Newsweek then analyzes.

Each school is judged on its graduation rate (25 percent), college matriculation rate (25 percent), AP/IB/AICE tests taken per student (25 percent), average SAT/ACT scores (10 percent), average AP/IB/AICE scores (10 percent), and AP courses offered per student (5 percent). The data provided by schools is then standardized so schools can be judged against one another based on their relative performance.

Comparison of Fair Lawn High School's 2011, 2012 and 2013 Newsweek Scores:

Newsweek's Top 20 High Schools in Bergen County

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