Talk:List of the oldest public high schools in the United States

Private vs. Public charter date and definition of high school
I have a question regarding many of these institutions that began as private schools, but are now public high schools. It seems thatt currently they are being listed by their founding dates as private institutions, but as this list is of oldest public high schools it seems more appropriate to list the date in which they were incorporated into a public school system. So my question becomes how should we deal with this problem?

I also have a question about how we are defining a high school. Boston Latin, for example, serves students in grades 7–12, whereas some of the institutions only serve grades 9–12 and still others serve students in grades K–12. So the question becomes, what sorts of schools are we including in the list?

Thanks, Golem88991 (talk) 22:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, this does not appear to be a list of the oldest public schools rather a list of the oldest high schools. Instead the schools should be placed in order of the date of public charter, that is the best indication of when a school became "public". I.e. Newburgh Free Academy was established in the 1700s' however it was not chartered as a "public high school" until 1852.

Thanks,Bcc07 (talk) 07:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Resolving conflicts
Nice list, is the main reference "Annual reports of the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1902." available online? I noticed that several of the schools claim to be higher up the list than they are, are their claims legitimate or should they just be changed? ~ Eóin (talk) 19:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hartford Public High School claims to be the 2nd oldest. (34)
 * Barringer High School claims to be the 3rd. (24)
 * Central High School (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) claims to be 2nd (20)
 * Portland High School, Portland, Maine claims to be the 2nd oldest still operating. (9)
 * Boston's English High School, Boston, Mass. claims to be the oldest public high school in America.This brings up the question of when these schools were actually considered or classified as "high schools" in the modern use of the term. While it is understandable that current public high schools want to trace their history to the founding date of the school, many schools were not "high schools" at the time of their founding - even Boston Latin School and Hartford High School. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.104.187.22 (talk) 16:40, 4 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The English High School is the article name for Boston's English High School, Boston, Mass. above.--DThomsen8 (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

1843 Cutoff
Why is 1843 the cutoff? Is there a reason? If not, I think that the cutoff should be moved to a historically significant date (like the end of the Civil War, perhaps). SMSpivey (talk) 08:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Some of these are not public schools, so how do we want to handle this?
The article opens "The following are the oldest public high schools in the United States that are still in operation. While some of these schools have operated as private schools in the past, all are currently public schools..."

But this appears to be not true. #5, Phillips Academy is described as "highly selective" and "independent", where Independent school says such schools are "independent in its finances and governance; it is usually not dependent upon national or local government to finance its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, donations, and in some cases the investment yield of an endowment."

So its not paid for by the town (or county or state school district). The board is not answerable to the town (etc.). It doesn't take the students graduating from the town's middle schools -- Andover High School (Massachusetts) does that. So in what sense is it public? Maybe I'm missing something?

This is very different from #4, Hopkins Academy, which is also named "Academy" and was once a private shcool I guess, but which now "is the public middle (7th and 8th grade) and senior (9th–12th grade) high school for the town of Hadley, Massachusetts".

Anyway, we need either change the lede or remove the private schools. I've figured that latter is what is intended so I removed Phillips Academy, but there are probably others in the list, which I can't be bothered with, but if nobody is interested in watching and maintaining this article it might be best to delete it. Herostratus (talk) 12:59, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Wrong List
I'm sure this list is wonderful for some people, but it is totally useless for most of the people who Google to here. Please give the page a more descriptive name (e.g. "Useless list of present-day public high schools sorted by alleged creation date, whether public or not" and prepare a new page with useful information.

I Googled to learn of the history of public schools in America. Once, Wikipedia was my go-to source for most information, but increasingly I need to train myself to ignore the Wikipedia links and look for websites with useful information. Wikipedia is being overrun with silly little pages that contribute nothing but slow down searches.

Consider this page. It does NOT even do what it claims, to "List the oldest public high schools in the United States." Public high schools which have ceased to exist are omitted. Private high schools are included. Schools before the United States are included. EVERY word in the title is wrong! :-)

Come on Wikipedia. You can do better.Jamesdowallen (talk) 01:54, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

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