Two Tucson High Schools, Flagstaff Charter School & Paradise Valley Unified School District Flex Muscle in Newsweek.com Rankings of Top US High Schools

TUCSON - June 26, 2009 - National recognition once again is coming to two Tucson high schools.

After receiving top 25 rankings in U.S. News & World Report's list of the top 100 US public high schools this past December, charter school BASIS Tucson and University High School, a college preparatory public high school in the Tucson Unified School District, were both ranked among the top 25 US high schools by Newsweek earlier this month.

BASIS Tucson topped all Arizona schools, finishing fifth, while University High School ranked an impressive 21st on the Newsweek ranking of the top 1,500 US high schools. The Newsweek poll utilized a ratio called the Challenge Index. The index takes into account the number of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students in 2008 as well as the number of graduating seniors.

For both schools, national rankings are becoming common, as both finished among the top 20 schools in U.S. News & World Report's 2007 rankings as well.

Flagstaff's Northland College Preparatory, which finished 59th in U.S. News & World Report's 2008 rankings, was ranked 90th by Newsweek, the third best performance by an Arizona school. BASIS Tucson, University High School and Northland College Preparatory were the only Arizona schools appearing in both publications' rankings.

Fourteen Arizona schools in all made the Newsweek rankings, which included a strong performance by Metropolitan Phoenix's Paradise Valley Unified School District. The district saw three schools make the list of top 1,500 schools, including Phoenix's Pinnacle High School (307th) and North Canyon High School (806th), as well as Scottsdale's Horizon High School (1,306th). A 15th Arizona school, Chandler's Basha High School, narrowly missed finished among the top 1,500 schools, ending 1,507th.

To see a list of all the Arizona school's rankings in the Newsweek list, please click here. The complete list of the 1,500 top US high schools is also available at the website.