B-CC, Whitman Receive Gold Medal in U.S. News' 'Best High Schools' Ranking

Montgomery County Public Schools are back in the news again.

Eight of the system's public high schools placed in U.S. News & World Report's 2013 Best High Schools list, with seven of them—including Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and Walt Whitman High School—receiving gold medals for being among the top 500 schools in the nation, and one receiving a silver medal, Montgomery County Public Schools reported in a statement.

The gold medal high schools and their national rankings are:

• Winston Churchill (ranked 52nd)
• Walt Whitman (ranked 59th)
• Poolesville (ranked 99th)
• Thomas S. Wootton (ranked 105th)
• Richard Montgomery (ranked 106th)
• Bethesda-Chevy Chase (ranked 128th)
• Montgomery Blair (ranked 247th)

Wheaton High School, ranked 1,032nd, received a silver medal.

"The schools on the U.S. News Best High Schools list should be proud of the work they have done to serve their students and prepare them for college and the workplace," Superintendent Joshua P. Starr said.

"I am pleased with the work that all of our high schools are doing, and we must continue to focus on meeting the needs of all students so we can prepare them for the future they want," he added.

U.S. News worked with Washington, DC-based American Institutes for Research to evaluate more than 21,000 high schools in the country. The analysis looked at overall student performance on state-mandated assessments; how effectively schools educated African-American, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students, and school performance on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams. Learn more about the methodology of the analysis on U.S. News & World Report's website. 

Earlier this spring, four county high schools, including Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, ranked in the top 100 schools of The Washington Post's 2013 High School Challenge—an annual ranking of the nation's high schools, Patch reported.