Ithaca high school is ranked #310 according to Newsweek's formula: "the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2004 divided by the number of graduating seniors", which is pretty lame
Does it take into account the scores achieved? I can see how to easily inflate a school's score by just having more people take tests.
The Wall Street Journal attempted to rank high schools too last year based on acceptance into top universities (Ivy Leagues & places like MIT/Stanford). Ithaca ranked 4th* in that and the top 3 were private schools so we felt like first in terms of public schools. I find this measure to be a more accurate measure of a schoo's ability to educate its students and how well those students' abilities reflect that. But it's still not close to perfect.
*Edit: This measurement sucks too. The reason we're that high is the fact that Cornell University IS Ithaca. The relationship between Ithaca High School and CU is very good and 60+ seniors are accepted there per year (out of 350). So that kinda inflates our standing for Ivy Leagues.