Calvin Coolidge High School in Takoma ranked second-best in D.C.

The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County was ranked second out of 22,000 high schools surveyed by U.S. News & World Report. It was beat out by Dallas’ School for the Talented and Gifted.

All told 96 high schools in Virginia, 62 in Maryland and two in D.C. made the list. According to the rankings, the overwhelming majority of top 20 schools in Virginia are local, most of them in Fairfax County. (Beyond Thomas Jefferson, George Mason High School in Falls Church came in 19th nationwide.) Of Maryland’s top schools, eight of the top 10 are in Montgomery County; Winston Churchill High School lead the charge nationally, coming in 57th.

The D.C. rankings are something of a mystery, though. In D.C., Benjamin Banneker High School in Northwest came in first (and 700th nationwide), followed by Calvin Coolidge High School in Takoma (1,455th nationwide). Banneker, a magnet school, is certainly very good—according to recent DCPS stats, it had a 100 percent graduation rate in 2011—but Coolidge is an interesting choice for the city’s second-best school, even according to U.S. News’ own rankings.

According to the methodology used by the magazine—student to teacher ratio, college readiness index, math proficiency and reading proficiency—Woodrow Wilson High School, School without Walls and Ellington School of the Arts all seem to be better choices. (Even by DCPS standards, all three graduate more students than Coolidge.) Still, none of those were even ranked, either nationally or in D.C.

A person we spoke to with knowledge of these issues explained that Coolidge may have been weighted differently because it has a higher proportion of economically disadvantaged students than, say, School Without Walls. (Of Coolidge’s 114 tested students in 2010, 83 were economically disadvantaged; only 20 of School Without Walls’ 108 tested students were similarly disadvantaged that same year.) The standards are relative, in a sense, and students at Coolidge are doing better than they’re expected to given the circumstances. (Which is a good thing, really.)

Another issue is that the rankings completely excluded the city’s growing charter schools, which includes some of the highest performing schools in D.C., according to just about every standard. (U.S. News did produce a separate list for charter schools; of the 112 listed, none is in D.C.) Thurgood Marshall Academy in Anacostia, for one, is among the best-performing schools in D.C.

Basically, we were told, rankings of this sort need to be taken with a shaker of salt. U.S. News isn’t picking names out of thin air, but they’re also in the business of selling magazines more than determining education policy.