Schools

USC Rates Highly in Washington Post High School Challenge

The Challenge measures how effectively a school prepares students for college.

In the world of rankings, got a good one this week from the Washington Post's High School Challenge.

Upper St. Clair ranked third out of 31 schools that made the list from Pennsylvania. 

The Challenge Index measures how effectively a school prepares its students for college," according to The Washington Post's website. "Since 1998, The Post’s Jay Mathews has ranked Washington-area public high schools ... In 2011, The Post expanded its research to high schools across the United States."

Find out what's happening in Upper St. Clairwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"The formula is simple: Divide the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or other college-level tests a school gave in 2010 by the number of graduating seniors," the Washington Post website states. "While not a measure of the overall quality of the school, the rating can reveal the level of a high school’s commitment to preparing average students for college."

Of the 1,900 public high schools ranked nationally, Upper St. Clair High School was ranked 365 with an index of 2.803. 

Find out what's happening in Upper St. Clairwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Upper St. Clair information page noted the school has a four-year graduation rate of 99.8 percent, that 88 percent of the graduates attend four-year colleges, the average SAT score is 1,693 and the average ACT score is 25.4.

The listing of statistics also included that 11 percent of students are in special education.

The rating does not count the scores received on the tests; it counts only the number of tests given, according to The Washington Post website.

Other local schools in the listing and their rankings include:

Pine-Richland, sixth in Pennsylvania and 806 in U.S.;

Quaker Valley, 12th in Pennsylvania and 1,077 in U.S.;

Mt. Lebanon, 22nd in Pennsylvania and 1,456 in U.S.;

Hampton, 23 in Pennsylvania and 1,561 in U.S.;

North Hills, 24 in Pennsylvania and 1,646 in U.S.;

Pittsburgh Taylor Allderdice, 26 in Pennsylvania and 1,699 in U.S.;

North Allegheny, 29 in Pennsylvania and 1,759 in U.S.

The High School Challenge does not include certain high-achieving magnet or charter high schools, the website states.

"The Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work with schools that have no, or almost no, average students. We put those schools on our Public Elites list," according to the FAQs by Jay Mathews.

The high Washington Post ranking comes a month after the Pittsburgh Business Times ranked the Upper St. Clair School District as the state’s best performing school district for the sixth year in a row.


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