However it might pay to see what percentage of AP students get credit. In some schools there is pressure to open AP classes to anyone, and if there are enough students who can’t hack it I can imagine it would be hard to teach.
My school district has a high school which is one of the top in the state, and a high school with very low scores. This is more from the student population than anything the district does, so buying anywhere in the district is a bad idea.
When we moved to the Bay Area all the relo consultants had books of test scores for all schools, not just high schools. This was heavily correlated to house prices. Assuming the kid is a high achiever, the availability of AP and GATE classes can be important, as is the availability of a range of interesting classes. Interesting depends on the kid.
IME it’s more often an inexperienced or unsupported teacher that is the problem, not shitty kids. Shitty kids often get the blame, of course.
Not really. For 20 years I taught AP European History to sophomores. The class was open to any student who had the stones to take it. They and their parents had to sign a contract stating that they knew what they were getting into, they were committed to taking the AP test in May and they couldn’t bail on the class when they discovered the class was harder than they thought. That gets rid of the looky-loos quite quickly.
The “non-AP” kids were often the most motivated and the hardest-working.
Also, it’s worth noting that a great pass rate doesn’t always mean it’s a better teacher. A greater % of kids in AP Physics pass than the % of students that pass my AP English class–but my absolute number is much higher, because I take them all and he takes the top half. So which one of us is more successful?
If the school has outdoor basketball courts and the hoops have nets on them, it’s a good school.
Also worth noting, AP scoring is a 1 to 5 scale. Some colleges won’t take AP credit at all. Some will only take 5s, others will take 3s. I think a 3 is considered passing, if you are bothering to look, you might want to evaluate not just the pass rate, but the overall distribution of scores. So there is a lot of statistical analysis to tell a whole story.
Me, I’d look for a good fit for my kids. My kids were different kids - I wish the high school would have had more trade type classes and been more focused on the trades being an acceptable post high school path for my son. At the same time, I wish they would have had more support for my college bound youngest - who left high school with enough credits to be a college sophomore - AP credits, dual enrollment credits - and no support their non-neurotypicalness, no college counseling to help choose a school, and no clue how to write a research paper. It is a good school on paper, but the reality of the school for my own kids was much weaker than the paper experience.
Not being able to hack it does not mean the kids are shitty. For instance if they didn’t do well in previous classes, but got pushed into AP by parents, they could have a problem. That’s why I recommended looking at results. Which might come from bad teaching also - if you are looking for a house you don’t have time to investigate.
Well along those lines under “Great Schools” they also note the percentage of teachers who have been there for over 3 years and how many have a maters. You see a school with only say 65% for 3 plus years, something is wrong.
If my dad went to that high school, so will I.
Oh wait - it burned down.
Then we moved to a district with bus service.
I’d pick a school I don’t have to haul kids to.
How about asking a teacher if they would send their own kid to that school or would they recommend another?
Do you think you would get an honest answer?
I would talk to kids that go to high school in the area. They will certainly have unvarnished opinions about their, and other schools, in the area. Assuming they’ll talk to you. 
I’ve picked my own schools based on whether a reasonable number of students were smiling in the cafeteria.
That’s a good one.
While we didn’t have much of a choice when we moved to California, we talked to the principal of the junior high school my oldest was going to go to. We had an issue because the higher taxes we paid in NJ resulted in a period more of school a day, so she was almost a year ahead of her peers here. That he recognized the issue and was willing for her to take classes in the high school down the block made us feel confident about the place, and we were right.
Talking to the administration should give you more useful data than external reviews.