MSA bronzed by national publication

• MSA

Minnesota Math and Science Academy has received a Bronze Medal Award from U.S. News and World Report. The publication’s awards recognize the nation’s top schools.

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Minnesota Math and Science Academy can add another accolade to its belt.

MSA was awarded a Bronze Medal Award by U.S. News and World Report for being one of the country’s top high schools.

Schools across the country are ranked – either gold, silver or bronze – based on programs offered, attendance rates, test scores and graduation rates among other criteria.

A total of 21,000 schools across the country were analyzed.

MSA was one of 28 Minnesota schools to make the list.

“They try to create a profile where these schools can be compared and contrasted and then ranked,” MSA director Paul Simone said.

The Woodbury-based school has received the Bronze Medal Award the past four years, Simone said.

MSA, founded in 1999, is a public charter school that serves students in grades 6 through 12 and focuses on intense math and science courses, as well as challenging arts and humanities courses.

MSA’s curriculum requires that students achieve success in many core areas of education — math, science, English and social studies — in courses that range from British literature to economics to calculus to physics.

On average, 90 percent of MSA’s 360 students move on to college, whether that is a four-year university, a small private college or a technical college since their education at MSA has given them the necessary tools to achieve success in college, as well as to make the decision of whether or not college is right for them, Simone said.

Simone said it’s the school’s ability to focus on individual students that likely has helped earn such accolades as the Bronze Medal Award over the years.

“It’s the same sorts of things that have gotten us recognized in the past,” he said. “We’re a small school that is able to focus and concentrate our efforts on a small group.”

Simone said receiving the Bronze Medal Award is very flattering and humbling, even though it can be difficult to compare so many varying schools.

“These are all very nice and very noble,” Simone said. “But the awards are somewhat guarded in that it is such a wide variety and wide range.

“Other schools are doing the same types of things and same types of successes and may or may not have been recognized.”

However, Simone did acknowledge that it is nice to be recognized.

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