B-CC is No. 29 on Newsweek's List of 100 Best Public High Schools in the U.S.

Newsweek ranked the 27,468 public high schools in the U.S. using Jay Matthews' Challenge Index — "the number of Advanced Placement (AP) and/or International Baccalaureate (IB) tests taken by all students at a school in 2004, divided by the number of graduating seniors." The list excludes any high school that has more than half of its students enrolled "based on highly competitive academic criteria like grades and test scores." According to Jay Matthews, AP and IB courses are important because they give students a more challenging academic experience in high school that, in turn, enables the students to be better prepared to handle "higher-level work." The article appears in the May 16, 2005 issue of Newsweek. More information is available online at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7761678/site/newsweek