Newton Public Schools Ranked 12th in the State by Boston Magazine

The following is a press release issued by Boston Magazine:

Boston magazine named Newton as the 12th best public school district in Massachusetts in their September 2011 issue.

Boston magazine crunched the numbers in an exclusive ranking of the best public school districts and biggest values in the area. Rankings were based on data gathered from consulting school officials and websites, as well as the Massachusetts Department of Education.

Determining factors of the district rankings includes test scores from elementary, middle, and high schools in 135 districts, per pupil spending, student to teacher ratio, number of AP classes, graduation rate, percent of students who continue to college, as well as the amount of sports teams and clubs.

George Recck, director of the Math Resource Center at Babson College, calculated the mean scores for each category and then ranked the districts based on a weighted average of each school data point’s difference from the mean.