I love lists, so I can’t believe I missed this. A commenter pointed out that two DISD schools finished in the Top 25 of U.S. News and World Report’s Best High Schools. The School for the Talented and Gifted at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center is No. 5, and the School of Science and Engineering Magnet is No. 8. Highland Park High School came in at No. 71.
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Those results are unfortunately misleading. For example, the results in the table you listed are based on “quality-adjusted exams per test taker” — that is, based on only the ratio of passed tests to the number of students that passed at least one test. See this PDF FAQ for a description. But a check of this database shows that at the Engineering Magnet, 96% of the student take tests, but only 48% of those exams were passing.
These rankings bias towards schools that can convince or force more kids to take the tests, since only those that pass tests will be counted in the rankings, and the ones that can’t pass anything are ignored.