The Houston metro area is home to 17 of the top 500 high schools in the U.S., according to new rankings published by the U.S. News and World Report.
That is six more schools than in last year’s rankings, when only 11 Houston-area high schools made the top 500, showing growth across the region.
Among the area’s top-ranked high schools, most are in traditional school districts, such as Houston and Katy ISDs, which have the most high schools on the list
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But 15 charter schools also made the area’s top 50 schools, most of which were in the YES Prep and Harmony Public Schools networks.
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U.S. News and World Report publishes annual rankings of the best high schools across the U.S. This year, researchers evaluated about 27,000 eligible high schools to create the rankings, which include almost 18,000 schools. To be eligible for the rankings, high schools had to be public schools and enroll at least 15 students in the 12th grade. The report use the most recently available data for all 50 states, which was the 2023-24 school year. (The rankings could change when newer data is released.)
Houston ISD had nine of the top 500 high schools in the U.S. The first two Houston-area high schools in the rankings were Carnegie Vanguard and DeBakey High School — both HISD campuses — which ranked at No. 25 and No. 91, respectively. The third-highest ranked school in the metro area was Kerr High School in Alief ISD, which was listed at No. 132 in the U.S. The school moved up almost 100 places on the list from last year, when it ranked No. 225 nationally
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Only three charter schools in the Houston area made the list of the nation’s top 500: Harmony School of Innovation-Katy, Harmony School of Discovery-Houston and YES Prep North Central
Diving into the data
There were 15 Houston-area school districts with high schools among the top 50. Most had only one or two high schools represented, except Houston and Katy ISDs and YES Prep and Harmony Public Schools. Houston ISD has the most high schools on this list, with 14. Next was YES Prep, a charter school network with nine campuses on the list. Katy ISD and Harmony Public Schools each had five campuses
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The majority of the schools on this list are located in the city of Houston. The list considered schools in other cities across the region and includes campuses in Katy, Sugar Land and Tomball
Six of the 17 schools were new additions to the nation’s top 500, showing growth for the region. The high school that improved the most in the nationwide rankings year over year was Tomball Star Academy, which moved up 624 places in the list. Harmony School of Discovery saw the second-largest jump, moving up 433 places since 2025
How the report was compiled
The rankings looked at six performance indicators, according to the report’s methodology, including student achievement on standardized tests, graduation rates and college readiness, as measured by student participation and performance on AP and IB exams. Schools are also analyzed based on how they educate students from underserved communities. However, analysts standardized the performance indicator for college readiness, with the understanding that some schools do not administer AP and IB exams, according to the methodology.
Analysts also looked at standardized test scores for proficiency rates of students and how schools fared compared to expected performance based on their students’ demographic profiles, researchers wrote
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“The total assessment scores are compared with what U.S. News predicted for a school with its demographic characteristics in its state,” the report says. “Schools performing best on this ranking indicator are those whose assessment scores far exceeded U.S. News’ modeled expectations.”
See Houston’s top 50 high schools
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