Glenbrook High School District 225 finished at the top of the class as the “most envied” high school district in Illinois, according to an online national study.
District 225 was listed 31st out of 250 of “America’s Most Envied School Districts,” according to Test Prep Insight, an online education company. The same 2024 survey listed the District as number one in Illinois. The District serves about 5,000 students at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview and Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook.
“We are fortunate to have strong parental and community support that ensures our students have tremendous learning opportunities with highly skilled professionals,” District 225 Superintendent Charles Johns said of the ranking.
Test Prep Insight came up with the results after conducting an online national survey of 3,000 adults based on age, gender, and geography and sought “to discover which school districts (parents) would hypothetically most want their children to be schooled in,” according to the company’s website.
“We recently ran a survey of 3,000 parents to discover which school districts they would hypothetically most want their children to be schooled in, if given the choice,” the website says. “As you may guess, the most sought-after districts in the country fall in wealthy suburbs of major metropolitan cities.”
“Online panel survey of 3,000 adults based on age, gender, and geography,” the website says. “Internal data sources are used to obtain population data sets. We used a two-step process to ensure representativeness through stratified sampling and post-stratification weighting.”
Lower Merion School District, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, was named as the country’s most envied district, due to its range of available extracurricular activities, the website says.
Township High School District 113, with approximately 3,300 students at Deerfield High School and Highland Park High School, was ranked 51st on the national survey. Township High School District 211, serving nearly 12,000 students in Hoffman Estates, Inverness, Palatine, and Schaumburg, and parts of Arlington Heights, Elk Grove Village, Hanover Park, Rolling Meadows, Roselle, Streamwood, and South Barrington, was ranked 69th on the national survey.
“The results of our study underscore disparities in educational opportunities across the US, largely influenced by local economic health and the robustness of the tax base,” according to the Test Prep Insight website. “The findings call for policy reforms aimed at reducing educational disparities by ensuring more equitable distribution of resources and funding across school districts.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
