Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda is the best public high school in the state for the third straight year, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of schools released Tuesday.
The rankings, which looked at 6,218 public schools around the country based on their students’ graduation rates and performance on state and college-level tests such as Advanced Placement exams, put Whitman as the 63rd best public school in the country.
Winston Churchill High School in Potomac was ranked as the second best public high school in Maryland and No. 94 in the country. Damascus High School was the next highest-ranked county school, coming in at No. 15 in Maryland and No. 410 nationally.
Poolesville High School came in at No. 107 in the national rankings, Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville at No. 115, Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda at No. 147 and Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville at No. 260.
In last year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings, Whitman also led Montgomery County high schools in the national rankings at No. 55, followed by No. 69 Churchill, No. 101 Wootton, No. 129 Poolesville and No. 191 Richard Montgomery.
This year’s methodology for the rankings changed, according to U.S. News & World Report education writer Bob Morse. Morse wrote the biggest change was that the website factored in graduation rates to the rankings because those rates were available from all states for the first time.
