Summary:
The Lansing Public School District operates three high schools—Everett High School, Eastern High School, and JW Sexton High School—serving grades 9-12 in Michigan’s capital city, where the district ranks in the 14th percentile statewide and roughly 87-90% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
For parents, the standout choice is Eastern High School, which leads the district in nearly every academic measure. It posts the best state ranking (597th of 800), a 97% graduation rate, and the highest proficiency rates on all assessments—including 37.9% on SAT Reading/Writing and 12.6% on SAT Math, compared to district averages of 29.1% and 8.5%. Everett High School sits in the middle but is trending downward, dropping from 607th to 677th in state rank, though it has the lowest dropout rate (0.4%) and largest enrollment (1,017 students). JW Sexton High School faces the steepest challenges: the lowest state rank (723rd), highest chronic absenteeism (63.2%), and weakest test scores, including just 3.7% proficiency in 10th-grade PSAT Math.
Across all three schools, chronic absenteeism is a crisis—ranging from 53.2% to 63.2%, more than double the state’s 27.9%—and math proficiency is alarmingly low, with even the best school (Eastern at 12.6%) far below the state average of 26.5%. Yet graduation rates are surprisingly strong, with all schools exceeding the state’s 84% mark, and JW Sexton actually spends the most per student ($24,562) despite its lowest outcomes, while Eastern achieves more with $3,293 less per student. This suggests that school culture and instructional quality matter more than funding alone, and that while poverty is a shared obstacle, Eastern’s relative success shows improvement is possible even in high-poverty settings.
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