24 Area High Schools Make Magazine's List

Packer said the College Board is planning to roll out a new measure this year, tentatively labeled "equity and excellence," that tracks the number of students in a graduating class who have achieved a passing score on an AP test (at least 3 on a scale of 1 to 5) during their high school careers. For The Post, Mathews has reported this year on early uses of this measurement in Montgomery and Fairfax counties.

For now, the Challenge Index still shapes discussion of high school reputations in the Washington area and elsewhere. Consider Einstein High in Kensington, one of 21 local schools on Newsweek's online top 1,000 list this year that were not on the magazine's expanded list in 2003.

Principal Jim Fernandez said he was ecstatic that Einstein had reached a ranking near those of its highly regarded peers in Montgomery County.

He hung a framed cover of the Newsweek edition with an appended list of the county's recognized schools outside his office -- a memento from equally elated county School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast.

"We want our kids to feel successful," Fernandez said. "We don't have a big self-esteem situation here. Something like this is great for us. You want that positive, positive, positive stuff."

At H-B Woodlawn, which rose to fifth in the national rankings from 10th in 2003, Principal Frank Haltiwanger said AP access is a given.

"This is the way we've always been," he said. "It's great to be high on Jay's list, a wonderful honor, but it's not what it's all about." Haltiwanger said he was concerned about possible academic overload by students who take as many as five AP courses at a time.

Patrick Welsh, a veteran AP English teacher at T.C. Williams in Alexandria -- which did not make the top 1,000 list -- said the index has spurred a "mad rush" by "publicity-hungry administrators" to pack into AP classes students who might be better served with another curriculum. Welsh, a frequent critic of the list, said The Post and Newsweek were promoting the Challenge Index at the expense of other educational measures.

"That's an enormous amount of power," he said of the two publications. "Nobody is fighting back. The PR thing is too important."

A senior official for Prince George's County public schools, which over the years have not fared well in the Challenge Index, declined to comment on the Newsweek rankings, citing the perceived power of the press. Eleanor Roosevelt High in Greenbelt, the county's only school on the list, ranked 748th.

Jo-Ann Armao, The Post's assistant managing editor for metropolitan news, said the newspaper recognizes the limitations of the Challenge Index and has reported on other educational yardsticks and on criticism of Mathews's approach.

"I don't think it's something where The Post is saying, 'Hey, this is the only way to measure schools,' "Armao said.

Mathews said advocacy for AP and IB access should be a "mom-and-apple pie" issue. "Anytime you rank high schools," he added, "a lot of educators get very upset."