New Rankings Reveal Louisiana’s Best Public High Schools

Most of the time when people in Louisiana get together to discuss high school the word football is usually included in the conversation. But no, this article is not about the current mess the LHSAA has on its hands or about the fact that a brand new high school football season kicks off across the state tomorrow night and Friday.

This is about that other reason that kids attend high school, you know to learn stuff just in case that career path of becoming a professional athlete hits a snag or two or twenty.

U.S. News and World Report has released its annual findings on the state of education in the country. Part of that narrative is their annual ranking of high schools across the nation and across the state.

The rankings utilized the criteria of college readiness, state assessment proficiency, state assessment performance, underserved student performance, college curriculum breadth, and graduation rates to arrive at their final calculation for a particular school's ranking.

The school that received the highest marks in Louisiana was Patrick F. Taylor Science and Technology Academy in Avondale, Louisiana. While that school was ranked as number one in Louisiana it was only ranked 44th in the nation and was the only Louisiana school to make the top 50 on the U.S. News and World Report survey.

The highest-ranked school in Acadiana was the Magnet Academy for Cultural Arts in Opelousas. That school was ranked #9 in the state and #1,075 nationally.

In Lafayette Parish, the highest-ranking school was Lafayette High. It was placed at #14 in the state and #1,643 in the nation. The David Thibodaux STEM Magnet Academy was also ranked in the top 20 for Louisiana. That Lafayette-based school was ranked at #18.

We should also note that Lafayette Parish had a third school in the Louisiana top 20 on the U.S. News and World Report rankings, that school, the Early College Academy was ranked #19 in Louisiana and #2,337 nationally.

The school with the highest ranking in Acadia Parish was Midland High School which was ranked #132 in the state. The second highest ranked Acadia Parish School was Iota High School that school was ranked #161 in the state.

Delcambre High School was the highest ranked for Iberia Parish, it was ranked #78 in Louisiana while Jeanerette Senior High was the second-ranked school in Iberia Parish. That school earned a ranking of #141 in Louisiana.

The top-ranked high school in Vermilion Parish was Erath High it was positioned at #72 in the statewide rankings. North Vermilion was the second choice in Vermilion Parish, it was #82 in the statewide ranking according to U.S. News and World Report.

In St. Martin Parish Cecilia High was the top-ranked school in the parish. That school earned a ranking of #181 statewide. The second choice appears to be a tie between Breaux Bridge High School and St. Martinville Senior High.

You can see the complete list of schools that were ranked by the publication right here. All in all some 18,000 public high schools were ranked along with a mix of charter, magnet, and traditional schools.