Local high schools have been operating like they never have before thanks to this pandemic that rages on. And yet, continue to operate they must.
High schools, after all, are an inflection point of education and training for our future workforces. And we've long wanted to know the top-ranking ones in a region replete with high-performing school systems.
We've already just unveiled the region's highest-ranked colleges and universities, according to the latest U.S. News and World Report ranking released Monday. Now, we thought we would take this opportunity to look one step backward, to the publication's annual ranking of high schools nationally.
The 2020 ranking was released after the pandemic, in April, but some things remain constant nevertheless, including the region's high school that has topped the list year after year: Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology — though where it ranks nationally this year compared with last may be more notable.
As in past years, U.S. News reviewed 24,000 schools nationally, working with North Carolina research firm RTI International to rank about 17,790 of them based on state, federal, College Board and International Baccalaureate data. Those metrics include:
- College readiness, based on the percentage of high school seniors who took and passed AP or IB exams
- College curriculum breadth, based on the variety of content areas in which those AP and IB exams were taken
- Math and reading proficiency based on state testing
- Math and reading performance based on state assessments
- Underserved student performance, based on how students of color and low-income students fared on state testing
- Graduation rates, based on how many enrolled freshmen graduated four years later
You can click through the gallery above to see whether, and where, your local high school ranked among the top 50 for D.C.-area schools in the U.S. News 2020 list. If you want to see how this compares with past years, here are past iterations:
Top Greater Washington high schools for 2019
Top Greater Washington high schools for 2018
Top Greater Washington high schools for 2017
And for good measure:
