The School District of New Berlin’s two high schools are considered among the state’s and nation’s best, according to the U.S. News and World Report’s 2020 rankings.

New Berlin Eisenhower ranked fifth - for the second straight year - while West was 25th among the 453 ranked Wisconsin high schools. With rankings of 331st and 926nd, both Eisenhower and West finished in the top 5.5 percent of the nearly 18,000 nationally ranked schools, according to the publication.

“Any time our high schools are recognized as two of the best in the state – or even the country – it’s a great honor and truly a reflection of the K-12 educational system we have established in the SDNB,” Superintendent Joe Garza said. “From the elementary schools on, our staff and families are focused on ensuring all students are college, career and life ready.”

The U.S. News & World Report’s rankings methodology is based on six measures, with the weights used for each indicator in parentheses:

• College readiness (30%): percentage of 12th grades from the class of 2017-18 who took at least one Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) exam during high school and the percentage of 12th graders who passed at least one AP or IB exam in high school.
• College curriculum breadth (10%): The percentage of 12th graders from the class of 2017-18 who took a wide variety of AP and IB courses across the multiple disciplines and the percentage of 12th graders who passed them.
• Reading and math proficiency (20%): Measures how well students scored on state assessments that measure proficiency in reading and mathematics.
• Reading and math performance (20%): The difference between how students performed on state assessments and what U.S. News predicted based on a school's student body.
• Underserved student performance (10%): How well the student population receiving subsidized school lunch, and black and Hispanic populations perform on state assessments relative to statewide performance among students not in those subgroups.
• Graduation rate (10%): For the 2019 rankings, the graduation rate corresponds to the 2018 graduation cohort who would have entered ninth grade in the 2014-15 school year.

To read the publication’s full methodology, click here. To see Wisconsin’s full list of high schools, click here.