US News and World Report magazine recently looked at more than 18,000 public high schools in the United States to arrive at their ranking of America’s Best High Schools.

Using a formula that measured how each school’s students performed on state tests, how well each school’s disadvantaged students did, and whether the school was successful in providing college-level coursework, they determined the top 100 schools.

These top 100 schools earned gold medals, the next 405 schools earned silver medals, and an additional 1,086 schools earned bronze medals.

As with most rankings the order depends on the data used and how it is interpreted. Data from the 2005-2006 school year was used for these rankings. There were 10 states that were not included in the rankings for providing insufficient or no data.

Santa Clara County/Santa Cruz County schools in top 100:

2. Pacific Collegiate Charter, Santa Cruz

59. Monta Vista High, Cupertino

66. Henry M. Gunn High, Palo Alto

72. Saratoga High, Saratoga

73. Lynbrook High, San Jose

85. Palo Alto High, Palo Alto

List of the top 100 Gold Medal schools here.

List of Santa Clara County schools here.