Today’s Wall Street Journal ranks Westport’s Staples High School among the elite public and private schools in the nation.
For a story in its Weekend Journal section, the newspaper tried to gauge whether costly private schools delivered more for the money, measured by admission to selective colleges, versus public schools.
“What do costly private-school tuitions buy in the college-admission sweepstakes?” the Journal said.
“To find out, Weekend Journal studied this year’s freshman classes at 10 selective colleges including seven Ivy League schools ֖ and compiled a list of students’ high-school alma maters.”
In the list of 65 schools dominated by private schools—only 29 were public schools—Staples was ranked No. 50 with the notation “Five 2003 graduates are at Cornell this year; three more are at Yale.”
Of the 29 public schools listed, Staples was No. 15. The Journal listed the 2003 Staples class size at 271 with 20 students entering selective colleges for a “success rate” of 7 percent.
In an e-mail circulated this morning to his staff, Supt. of Schools Elliott Landon called attention to the newspaper’s ranking.
“When questioned by members of the Board of Finance during the ‘restoration request meeting’ of Wednesday night, I asserted that our entire K-12 system was comparable to the finest of the private schools in this nation, if not better,” Landon said.
“In today’s Wall Street Journal, there is a listing of private and public high schools considered to be the best in the nation, determined by comparing the rate of selection of graduating seniors at the nation’s 10 most selective colleges.
“Lo and behold, Staples High School is listed prominently on that list. Great communities have great schools!”
Staples ranked one notch below New York’s prestigious Bronx High School of Science. The only other Connecticut public school on the list was Greenwich High School which ranked No. 62.
Four Connecticut private schools did well in the rankings: Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford was No. 19; Hopkins School in New Haven was No. 20; the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville was No. 22, and the Taft School in Watertown was No. 33.
Six suburban New York public schools ranked higher than Staples: Scarsdale (N.Y.) High School was No. 37; Roslyn (N.Y.) High School was No. 38; Horace Greely High School, Chappaqua, N.Y., was No. 39; Millburn (N.J.) High School was No. 42; Princeton (N.J.) High School was No. 45, and Great Neck (N.Y.) High School South was No. 47.
I am not surprised that Staples High School ranks so high in the nation…I have always thought we were the best anyhow…one of its biggest cheerleader! It is thanks to our community that we want the best for our kids and has made Westport such a special place…no matter what age…“We have it all” Congrats Staples! Also Dan Woog’s History book “Staples High School-120 years of A+ Education” that will be coming out in a year or so, sure will be right on the mark. Betty Lou Cummings
I have always known that Westport is one of the finest communities in America and now it’s documented that our school system is one of the finest in the country. Congratulations to our school administrators, teachers, counselors and Board of Education! Thanks for all of your dedication and hard work.
While as a student at Staples, I wholeheartedly agree with the assertion that we are among the top schools in this country, I feel it necessary to point out also the fallacies of the Journal’s rankings. Schools’ achievement should not be measured in terms of the number of graduates attending an arbitrary ten “top” schools, as the articles writers seem to believe. In fact, they even have the audacity to call the percentage of the student body attending those ten schools the “success rate” of the schools. This is deplorable. Certainly students of the Bronx High School of Science (ranked right above Staples) should take issue with their placement, as a significant portion of their students pursue educational paths outside of the liberal arts, attending schools like MIT or Caltech. I’m happy we were ranked so high, but I think we all need to be conscious of the fact we are looking at an arbitrary ranking.