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Arlington High Schools Tops in Nation

Newsweek Ranks H-B Woodlawn, Washington-Lee
and Yorktown in Top 100. Wakefield in Top 2% in the Nation

Newsweek magazine has ranked all four APS high schools in the top two percent of high schools in the nation according to this year’s rankings published in the May 18 issue.

Rankings were determined by using The Washington Post Challenge Index, which rates each school by dividing the total number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2007 divided by the number of graduating seniors. A score of 1.000 means the school had as many AP and/or IB tests taken as graduating seniors.

Out of over 1,300 schools with a Challenge Index rating of 1.000 or higher, representing five percent of the approximately 26,000 high schools in the nation; APS high school rankings were:

• H-B Woodlawn ranked 16^th with a rating of 5.636;
• Washington-Lee ranked 64^th with a rating of 4.051;
• Yorktown ranked 74^th with a rating of 3.896; and
• Wakefield ranked 420^th with a rating of 2.157.

“I congratulate our students, their parents, teachers and administrators on this outstanding result,” said Superintendent Dr. Robert G. Smith. He continued: “We believe it is vital to ensuring a rich and rigorous curriculum that we give all of our students access to advanced learning opportunities, such as AP and IB courses, and that we provide them the encouragement and assistance needed to ensure their success. While we recognize and appreciate that the Challenge Index does not capture all of the elements of a good school, we believe that the degree of challenge given students represents one very important measure of a school’s quality.”

The May 18 Newsweek article and the complete list are available online at www.newsweek.com/id/39380/?q=2008/rank/1/.