PRHS Rates Highly in Washington Post High School Challenge

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

PRHS ranked sixth 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."

"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, PRHS was ranked 806 with an index of 1.994. For the Northeast region, Pine-Richland High School was ranked 133.

A PRHS information page noted the school has 15 AP courses and 11 varsity sports. It also said the four-year graduation rate is 98 percent, the average SAT score is 1,644 and that 92 percent of the students attend a four-year college.

The listing of statistics also included that 12.5 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:

Upper St. Clair, third in Pennsylvania and 365 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.