Want good public high schools? Look no further than the Virginia and Maryland suburbs around D.C.
U.S. News & World Report is back with its list of the top 500 high schools in the U.S., and Virginia and Maryland contenders have again fared well.
Alexandria’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology took fourth place nationwide, while three schools in Montgomery County—Churchill, Whitman and Poolesville—cracked the top 100. D.C.’s top contender is School Without Walls, coming in at 266th nationally. The only other D.C. school to make the list is Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, at 461st. (Enter the usual caveat about comparing urban schools to suburban schools here.)
Broken down a little further, seven of Maryland’s top 10 schools are in Montgomery County. In Virginia, the top 11 schools are local—nine in Fairfax County, two in Loudoun County.
As for D.C., well, it’s complicated. None of the best charter schools seem to have submitted AP scores, which determine the “College Readiness” index used by the publication. As such, none are ranked, despite the fact that they post high graduation rates and do well on standardized exams.
Martin Austermuhle