Six Houston-area High Schools Make Newsweek's List of 500 Best Public High Schools

Newsweek’s 2016 list of the best public high schools in the country includes six Houston-area schools. The lists were released Thursday morning.

These Houston public high schools made the 2016 Newsweek list of best schools:

• 64 Michael E.Debakey High School for Health Professionals Houston
• 82 William P. Clements High School Sugar Land
• 148 Clear Horizons Early College High School Houston
• 184 Andrew Carnegie Vanguard High School Houston
• 433 High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Houston
• 479 Cypress Ranch High School Cypress

Newsweek’s rankings of the best public high schools in the country stand apart from other attempts to rank school performance. Newsweek uses legitimate and objective measurements to put together its annual ranking of the country’s best high schools.

Newsweek looked at six measurements and weighted them to achieve a “college readiness index.” The rankings show how well high schools prepare students for college. Those measurements and their weight are:

• Holding power: 10 percent
• Ratio of counselor/full-time equivalent to student enrollment: 10 percent
• Weighted SAT/ACT: 17.5 percent
• Weighted AP/IB/dual enrollment composite: 17.5 percent
• Graduation rate: 20 percent
• College enrollment rate: 25 percent