Southwest High School is the best in Minnesota

Not the Taj Mahal, but better than your school.

​Any minute now, all those families who abandoned Minneapolis and St. Paul for Edina, Minnetonka, and other assorted Twin Cities suburbs "for the great schools" are going to be sticking "for sale" signs on their front lawns, right?

Nah. Just kidding.

But we do note with a smile and not a little pride that Southwest High School in Minneapolis,with its humble hallways and overcrowded lunchroom, has been named the best public high school in the state by The Washington Post, at least in terms of pumping out future collegians. And isn't that really the central point of high school?

Some other urban schools are in the Top 20, too: Central, Como Park and Harding in St. Paul, and South Minneapolis.

The formula:

Divide the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or other college-level tests a school gave in 2010 by the number of graduating seniors. While not a measure of the overall quality of the school, the rating can reveal the level of a high school's commitment to preparing average students for college.

Congrats Lakers!

Here's the Top 20:

1 Southwest (Minneapolis)
2 Edina
3 St. Louis Park
4 Central (St. Paul)
5 South (Minneapolis)
6 Minnetonka
7 Mahtomedi
8 Eastview (Apple Valley)
9 Robbinsdale Armstrong (Plymouth)
10 Lakeville North (Lakeville)
11 St. Anthony Village
12 Stillwater Area
13 Eden Prairie
14 Irondale (New Brighton)
15 Simley Inver Grove
16 Como Park (St. Paul)
17 Wayzata
18 Chaska
19 Harding (St. Paul)
20 Mounds View