Thirteen central Ohio high schools are listed among the top 1,591 in the nation in a report released Nov. 29 by U.S. News & World Report.

None of the 13 received gold medals for placing in the top 100 schools, but eight were among the next 405, receiving silver medals, and five received bronze medals for placing in the next 1,086.

The local silver award winners were Columbus Alternative, Dublin Coffman, Dublin Jerome, Bexley, Grandview, Thomas Worthington, Upper Arlington and Westerville South high schools.

Those receiving bronze medals were Beechcroft, Briggs, Centennial, Eastmoor and Northland high schools.

According to a story posted on the magazine's Web site, School Evaluation Services, a K-12 education data research business run by Standard & Poor's, looked at data from 18,790 public high schools in 40 states using information from the 2005-06 school year. Ten states and the District of Columbia were not included because they did not make test data available.

The analysis was a three-step process that looked at how each school was educating all students, not just those that are college-bound, according to the Web story.

The first step used proficiency test data in reading and math for all students, then "factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations," according to the methodology listed in the story.

The analysis then looked at how minority and low-income students stacked up to similar students around the state.

If a school made it through the first two steps, the consultants then looked at how it was preparing students for college, primarily by looking at advanced placement data.