High School Rankings

 It’s springtime again, and that means that many national newspapers, magazines and online news organizations are once again releasing their guides, rankings and graded lists of the best high schools in America.

 Three Spring Branch ISD campuses – Memorial and Stratford high schools and Westchester Academy for International Studies – are ranked among the top 500 campuses in the nation in the latest Washington Post ranking of U.S. secondary schools titled “America’s Most Challenging High Schools 2014.”

Among Texas ranked high schools, Stratford High was No. 49, followed by Memorial High at No. 50, and Westchester Academy for International Studies nearby at No. 52. Nationally, Stratford High ranked No. 368; Memorial was No. 389, and Westchester Academy was ranked 409 under the newspaper’s rankings.

The Washington Post rankings are compiled by education columnist Jay Mathews, who has been reviewing and rating schools nationally and in the Washington, D.C., region for 16 years.

 More than 1,900 schools are listed on the Washington Post rankings. Among other criteria are the percentages of students eligible for free or reduced price meals – a common benchmark for poverty or low income – and each school’s average SAT score.

The rankings also include an Index Score, or the number of college-level tests given at a high school in the previous year divided by the number of graduates that year. Also noted are the percentage of graduates who passed at least one college-level test during their high school career, which the Washington Post calls Equity and Excellence, or E&E, in its scoring system.

To review the Washington Post’s list of national and local rankings of high school effectiveness in preparing students for college, please visit: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/local/highschoolchallenge/

 In separate but related news, U.S. News & World Report editors are expected to publish their annual rankings, titled “2014 Best High Schools,” this week. This group’s rankings will be available online only, and is being produced with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), a large social science research organization.

For U.S. News & World Report rankings, please visit: http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2014/03/27/release-of-new-best-high-schools-rankings-set-for-april-22?int=a0ab09


Note: The following information has been updated and corrected.