By Michael Hoover (December 6, 2002)

For the fifth year in a row, Falls Church’s George Mason High School has topped the list of the area’s “Most Challenging High Schools” according to the “Challenge Index” published in yesterday’s Washington Post. 

With a Challenge Index rating of 4.365, George Mason, which also ranked second in the entire country when the last national rankings were done by Newsweek Magazine in 2000, came in at the top of 155 area schools ranked by Post education writer Jay Mathews. Arlington’s H-B Woodlawn (3.961), Fairfax County’s W.T. Woodson (3.448) and Arlington’s Yorktown (3.422) came in second, third and fourth respectively. The Challenge Index rankings are determined by dividing the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests a school gave in May by the number of seniors who graduated in June.

School District Challenge Rating George Mason Falls Church 4.365 H-B Woodlawn Arlington 3.961 WT Woodson Fairfax 3.448 Yorktown Arlington 3.422 Washington-Lee Arlington 3.192 Langley Fairfax 3.144 Richard Montgomery Montgomery 2.969 Walter Johnson Montgomery 2.848 Westfield Fairfax 2.848 Banneker D.C. 2.796

In a congratulatory memo to his school’s entire staff, George Mason principal Bob Snee said, “While the Challenge Index may represent something very basic mathematically, it represents so much more—a school culture that has been crafted very deliberately over many years through a huge investment of time, effort and love on the part of every person who works here and does his or her job so expertly.” 

Writer Mathews found that more and more high schools are changing their culture and attitudes about encouraging more students to participate in advanced programs. Fairfax County, for example, found a 19-percent increase in the number of students taking college-level tests.