Chicago dominates top public high schools

Payton College Prep is best in state and in top 10 nationwide, but Rockton’s Hononegah is best outside city and suburbs ranking at 52

Chicago’s Walter Payton College Prep is once again the top public high school in the state and ranked in the top 10 nationally. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

By Ted Cox

Chicago and its suburbs dominated the top public high schools in the state in the latest annual rankings released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report.

Chicago Public Schools’ Payton College Prep was rated the top school in Illinois and made the top 10 nationwide, ranking ninth. CPS had the top five public high schools in the state — with Payton followed by Northside College Prep, Lane Tech, Whitney Young, and Jones College Prep — before Stevenson High School in suburban Lincolnshire placed sixth. CPS’s Brooks College Prep and Phoenix Military Academy placed eighth and ninth, with Forest Park’s Proviso Math and Science Academy ranking seventh and Libertyville High School rounding out the top 10.

High schools in the greater Chicago area dominated the top 50 statewide. It wasn’t until Hononegah High School in Rockton just north of Rockford came in 52nd that a school outside the immediate Chicago area made the rankings. Dunlap High School outside Peoria and Mahomet-Seymour High School just outside Champaign-Urbana also made the top 60.

Chicago also dominated charter schools, with CPS’s Chicago Math and Science Elementary Charter tops in that category and placing 80th statewide.

The annual rankings are sure to add fuel to the debate over whether Illinois needs to expand its education funding to make the level of education more consistent statewide. The Illinois Education Association released a statewide poll Tuesday finding that 71 percent of Illinoisans support an increase in state funding for public education.