<p>The way I gauged my local public HS performance was to compare where the top 60 kids from the HS go to college compared to our top local private HS. When they are similar, you can say that your public HS is doing a good job. When I see graduates of some of these private high schools going to mid-level competitive state colleges, I ask why did their parents pay $35K per year for that? You can easily get into those schools from any public HS. However, when you look at some of the larger cities with lousy public schools, that would temper my commitment to public schools. We chose to live in an area with top schools so our kids could attend public high school and still get a good education. If you feel that your school is lacking in an area, it is much less expensive to send your kid to public high school and get your kid tutoring in specific areas. It will cost much less to get extra tutoring than pay for private HS tuition.</p>