By Jason W. Brooks
Mail | X: @JasonWBrooks2

​Arizona College Prep High School is the highest-ranked Chandler Unified School District high school on U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 rankings, which were released this week.

ACPHS is ranked No. 13 among all Arizona high schools on the list and No. 243 nationally on the list of more than 17,000 ranked.

ACPHS’s 97% graduation rate is one factor in its high ranking. The rankings are based on many metrics that are explained here. 

A high school located in the West Valley, BASIS Peoria, claimed the No. 1 spot nationally.
Hamilton and Basha high schools earned CUSD’s next-highest rankings this year.

Hamilton is 27th in Arizona and 1,887th nationally, Basha is 29th in the state and 1,972nd in the U.S.

Perry High School is ranked No. 36 in Arizona and No. 2,822 in the country. Chandler Online Academy is No. 119 and No. 6,847, respectively.

Chandler High School is No. 133 in Arizona and No. 7,706 in the U.S. Casteel is No. 163 in the state and is No. 9,606 nationally.

The publication ranked nearly 17,660 out of more than 24,000 reviewed public high schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Lists includes a mix of charter, magnet and traditional schools.

The overall scores are based on six criteria: college readiness, state assessment proficiency, state assessment performance, underserved student performance, college curriculum breadth and graduation rate.

Using this methodology, schools earned an overall percentile score between 0 and 100 at two decimal places, according to the report.

Scores below the 25th percentile are listed with a ranking range rather than a numerical rank, and each percentile includes 177 schools, so small changes due to any factor can result in big moves within the rankings, the report said.

Bogle Junior High School was tops among the six CUSD middle schools on the list. It ranked 108th in Arizona in this year’s rankings.

Knox Gifted Academy is the top-ranked elementary school in Arizona this year, according to the data. Therefore, Knox is also the highest-ranked elementary among the 32 CUSD campuses on the list.

The highest-ranked charter school in the city of Chandler on any of the publication's lists lists is BASIS Chandler. It’s ranked No. 11 in Arizona and No. 84 nationally.

To find out if your school made the list, go to click here.

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this topic.  Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Email Jason W. Brooks at jbrooks@iniusa.org

Jason W. Brooks
Associate Editor

Jason W. Brooks is a News editor for the Daily Independent and the Chandler Independent.

He covers the Chandler area for both yourvalley.net and the monthly print edition while writing for and assisting in the production of the Daily Independent.

Brooks is a well-traveled journalist who has documented life in small American communities in nearly all U.S. time zones.

Born in Washington, D.C. and raised there and in suburban Los Angeles, he has covered community news in California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and northern Arizona.