From Newsweek Magazine's Challenge Index


Richard Montgomery High School, where Montgomery Square north children matriculate, according to Newsweek Magazine and the Washington Post, is the best High School in Maryland and the 37th best in the United States. Public schools are ranked according to a ratio called the Challenge Index: the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2002 divided by the number of graduating seniors. Schools that chose more than half of their students by grades or test scores were not considered because the index is designed to identify schools that challenge average students and does not work well with schools that have few or no average students. The schools ranked in the list have the strongest AP or IB programs in the country. Each of them is in the top four percent of all American high schools measured this way. Winston Churchill, serving the southern half of Montgomery Square, also placed well in the list, at 74th nationally.

You can review the entire list at the following web sites:

http://www.csh.k12.ny.us/highschool/data/TheTopHighSchools.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/education/kto12/challengeindex/