US News list ranks best high schools in the country. These are in Durham, Chapel Hill
U.S. News released its annual rankings of high schools last week with many in the Triangle ranking at the top of the state.
Three Triangle schools were ranked both among the best high schools in the nation and in the Raleigh and Durham-Chapel Hill metro areas.
Raleigh Charter High, Woods Charter School and Wake STEM Early College all ranked in the top 500 in the U.S. News 2022 Best High Schools List.
Woods Charter ranked No. 1 in the Durham-Chapel Hill metro area. Raleigh Charter and Wake STEM were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the Raleigh metropolitan area.
The website’s annual report ranked 17,843 U.S. public high schools based on college readiness, proficiency on state exams, performance on state exams, performance of underserved students, college curriculum breadth and graduation rates.
Raleigh, Durham in top metro areas
U.S. News has been rating high schools since 2007. These rankings were based on 2019-20 school year data when the U.S. Department of Education waived the requirement for states to give standardized tests due to the pandemic. As a result, test scores for the prior three years were used instead.
The Raleigh metro area remained 12th among the nation’s 927 metropolitan areas in terms of having the highest proportion of its public high schools ranked in the top 25% nationally. The Raleigh metro area finished higher than places such as Virginia Beach, New York City, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas.
Durham-Chapel Hill ranked 32nd among metro areas after not making the top 41 list last year.
Top Durham-Chapel Hill schools
The top 10 schools in the Durham-Chapel Hill metro area (which includes Durham, Orange, Chatham, Granville and Person counties) are:
▪ Woods Charter School in Chatham County (No. 4 in the state and No. 172 nationally)
▪ Research Triangle High School in Durham (No. 12 in the state and No. 554 nationally)
▪ East Chapel Hill High School (No. 13 in the state and No. 558 nationally)
▪ Chapel Hill High School (No. 24 in the state and No. 780 nationally)
▪ Durham School of the Arts (No. 27 in the state and No. 901 nationally)
▪ Carrboro High School (No. 29 in the state and No. 997 nationally)
▪ City of Medicine Academy in Durham (No. 44 in the state and No. 1,634 nationally)
▪ Oxford Preparatory School in Oxford (No. 47 in the state and No. 1,751 nationally)
▪ Eno River Academy in Hillsborough (No. 53 in the state and No. 2,028 nationally)
▪ Roxboro Community School (No. 56 in the state and No. 2,107 nationally)
Charter schools
Charter schools make up three of the top 10 schools in the Raleigh list and five of the top 10 in the Durham list.
Charter schools are taxpayer-funded schools that are exempt from some of the rules that traditional public schools must follow. For instance, they’re not required to provide school bus service or participate in the federal school lunch program.
They also have more flexibility in how they spend their money, don’t have to follow the school calendar law and don’t need all their teachers to be licensed.
Read the full report at www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools.
