America’s Top Public High Schools — as defined by how many students take Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge classes — is up at Newsweek. Magnets and charters tend to rate high on the “challenge-index.” Some high-poverty, high-minority charters — Preuss in San Diego, MATCH in Boston, KIPP Houston — make the top 100.
Jay Mathews, father of the challenge index, has a Catching Up list of schools with high rates of AP participation but very low pass rates on the exam. He argues students benefit from the challenge, even if they don’t do well enough to earn college credit.