The Best High Schools In Texas For 2017: U.S. News And World Report

U.S. News and World Report has crunched the numbers once again, releasing its annual list of best high schools in the country. Schools are ranked on both the national and state levels.

Texas fared well in the report, with three schools in the the Top 10 list of the best high schools in the nation, a result that has earned the state some serious bragging rights. The School for the Talented and Gifted in Dallas, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston and the School of Science and Engineering in Dallas ranked 4th, 8th and 9th highest-rated high schools in the U.S., respectively, each earning the top gold medal.

Houston's DeBakey High School for Health Professions also scored high, performing well enough in the reckoning and scoring the 18th overall position and earning its own gold medal.

School quality wasn't limited to the big city, though. In the Rio Grande Valley, located in the southernmost tip of South Texas along the northern bank of the valley separating Mexico from the U.S., the city of Edinburg, Texas, has much to celebrate with this year's compilation. The IDEA Quest College Preparatory snagged a gold medal and the 43rd rank among the nation's best high schools.

Just 12 notches down, the IDEA Frontier College Preparatory in Brownsville, Texas, another educational facility along the border, ranked 55th best high school in the country. The showing was good enough to earn the school a gold medal.

Houston's Challenge Early College High School also fared well; it ranked as the 69th best high school in the country in its own gold medal-winning performance. Eight notches below that is another gold medal winner, The Science Academy of South Texas, located in Mercedes, Texas. Like Edinburg, the town of Mercedes is a part of the McAllen–Edinburg–Mission and Reynosa–McAllen metropolitan areas.

Nine other Texas high schools made the Top 100 list in the national rankings:

• Summit International Preparatory in Arlington (gold medal) ranked 79th.
• YES Prep - Southwest in Houston, ranked 82nd among the nation's best receiving a gold medal.
• In the 85th position, Yes Prep - East End in Houston earned a gold medal.
• Booker T. Washington SPVA in Dallas was ranked 92nd nationwide, and won a gold medal to add to its accomplishment.
• IDEA College Preparatory Mission, located in Mission, Texas, came in 93rd place among the nation's best, enough to earn a gold medal as well.
• Harmony Science Academy (El Paso) was just a notch below at No. 94, earning the school a gold medal from the magazine.
• Uplift Education-North Hills Prep High School snagged the 96th ranking in the national poll, giving the school in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas, a gold medal of its own.
• Squeaking into the Top 100 was Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School of Dallas, which ranked 99th overall and won a gold medal.

Other gold medal winners from Texas included another pair of Houston schools: YES Prep - Southeast, (ranked 101) and YES Prep - North Central (103rd). In San Benito, Texas, South Texas Academy for Medical Professions ranked 109th, good enough to secure a gold medal. The town of San Benito is located in South Texas, and is the birthplace of the late singer Freddy Fender and author T. R. Fehrenbach.

Other high schools in Houston and Laredo also ranked highly. In the former, Victory Early College High School came in as the 112th ranked high school in the country, followed by Early College High School in Laredo, which was ranked 113th. Both schools earned gold medals.

Another pair of gold medal-winning Austin schools, KIPP Austin Collegiate and Richards School for Young Women Leaders, were ranked 116th and 117th, respectively.

Also earning gold were Uplift Williams Preparatory (Dallas), IDEA College Preparatory (San Juan) and Highland Park High School (Dallas), in the 139th, 140th and 141st positions, respectively, in the national rankings.

No slouches academically, Young Women's Leadership Academy in San Antonio and Eastwood Academy in Houston earned gold medals in placing 144th and 145th. In Mercedes, Texas, South Texas High School for Health Professions made the 149th position nationally, while Harmony School of Science - Houston High in Sugar Land came in 158th and KIPP Generations Collegiate of Houston was ranked 160th. All three latter schools earned gold medals for the academic achievements.

In San Antonio, International School of America secured the 172nd spot in the national rankings, a gold medal showing. Not far behind was fellow gold medal winner YES Prep - Gulfton in Houston in the 174th position.

Making it onto the Top 200 list were Talkington School for Young Women Leaders in Lubbock (190th) and South Texas Business Education and Technology Academy in Edinburg (193rd). Both schools were deemed gold medal winners.

No other Texas schools made the Top 200, although Texas was well represented in the lower third part of the national rankings—still gold-medal-worthy territory—from Arlington, Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Westlake and other cities.

The 2017 rankings of best high schools identify the top-performing public schools at both the national and the state level and include data on more than 20,000 high schools. To be considered among the best, high schools had to pass a rigorous four-step process designed to determine whether a school was serving all of its students and not just those who are college bound.

The first step determined whether students at a particular school were performing better than statistically expected for students in that state, factoring in percentages of economically disadvantaged students to identify schools. Schools that passed this step then moved on to step two, which assessed whether disadvantaged students performed at or better than state averages for the least-advantaged students.

For the next two steps, U.S. News looked at graduation rates and college-readiness performance. To pass step three, high schools had to have a graduation rate of 75 percent or greater. For the 2017 rankings, the graduation rate reflect students who entered the ninth grade in the 2011-2012 school year. Finally, U.S. News calculated a college readiness index, which was the number of 12th graders who took and passed at least one AP test, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

To be ranked numerically nationally, schools had to pass steps 1-3 and have a college readiness index of 20.91 or above.

A total of 6,041 schools were ranked, 500 schools receiving gold medals, 2,109 schools receiving silver medals and the remaining 3,432 schools received bronze medals. Schools that received bronze medals passed the first three steps but were not ranked numerically in the national rankings. The state rankings were based on whether a high school received a gold, silver or a bronze medal and had a CRI value of 10 or higher. Previously, only gold and silver medal winners were ranked numerically on the state level.

The top high schools in Texas are:

1. School for the Talented and Gifted, Dallas

2. Carnegie Vanguard High School, Houston

3. School of Science and Engineering, Dallas

4. DeBakey High School for Health Professions, Houston

5. Liberal Arts and Science Academy, Austin

6. IDEA Quest College Preparatory, Edinburg

7. IDEA Frontier College Preparatory, Brownville

8. Challenge Early College High School, Houston

9. The Science Academy of South Texas, Mercedes

10. Summit International Preparatory, Arlington

The top high schools in the country are:

1. BASIS Scottsdale, Scottsdale, Arizona
2. BASIS Tucson North, Tucson, Arizona
3. BASIS Oro Valley, Oro Valley, Arizona
4. School for the Talented and Gifted, Dallas, Texas
5. BASIS Peoria, Peoria, Arizona
6. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Virginia
7. Basis Chandler, Chandler, Arizona
8. Carnegie Vanguard High School, Houston, Texas
9. School of Science and Engineering, Dallas, Texas
10. Pacific Collegiate Charter, Santa Cruz, California

Click here to see the full list.

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