Ranking in Washington Post's Most Challenging Schools

The Washington Post has recently released its top schools in the Nation report for 2015’s most challenging schools.  Westchester was ranked 197 in the country this year!  This is a 222 point jump from where we were ranked 419 in 2014, making us the highest ranked school in SBISD!

We are ranked number 38 in the state of Texas according to this report, and 9th in the Houston area. Of Washington Post's top 10 schools in the Houston area, we are one of only a couple who are open enrollment.

We take the total number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education tests given at a school each year and divide by the number of seniors who graduated in May or June. I call this formula the Challenge Index. With a few exceptions, public schools that achieved a ratio of at least 1.00, meaning they had as many tests in 2014 as they had graduates, were put on the national list. 

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I think 1.00 is a modest standard. A school can reach that level if only half of its students take one AP, IB or AICE test in their junior year and one in their senior year. But this year, just 11 percent of the approximately 22,000 U.S. public high schools managed to reach that standard and earn placement on our list. On our list, the top 220 schools are in the top 1 percent nationally, the top 440 in the top 2 percent, and so on.

-source:  How the America’s Most Challenging High Schools list works
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/how-americas-most-challenging-high-schools-works-the-selection-method/2015/04/14/cfdd9e44-e30a-11e4-905f-cc896d379a32_story.html