Public school students in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia take a battery of standardized achievement tests every year.

In the 1996-97 school year, students in the following schools performed better on those tests than students in at least 90 percent of the other schools in their state. In the case of D.C. schools, those listed performed better than students in at least 90 percent of the other schools in the city.

Maryland and Virginia school systems included in the list are: Prince George's, Montgomery, Anne Arundel, Howard, Calvert, Charles, St. Mary's, Fairfax, Arlington, Prince William and Loudoun counties and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church.