Carnegie Vanguard High School

Carnegie Vanguard's academics have been widely recognized in the country. For the past several years, Carnegie Vanguard has been consistently ranked the top ranked public high school in the Houston area and a top 25 public high school in the country by several major magazines and journals including Newsweek, Washington Post, and US News and World Report.

The reinstatement of Lawrence Allen, the Jones HS principal, who was put in charge of the comprehensive program at Jones, prompted the HISD Vanguard program separation.

Carnegie Vanguard High School opened in August 2002 in the former Carnegie Elementary School building on Scott Street and Airport Boulevard near the Sunnyside neighborhood. Carnegie began its first year as a separate school (2002–2003) with 173 students. The elementary school students who attended Carnegie Elementary were moved to Woodson Middle School, which became the Woodson K-8 School; Woodson now has only elementary grades.

In 2009, HISD administration proposed relocating Carnegie to the Fourth Ward. District administrators favored the move because students come from across the school district, and the central location would make transportation easier. During that year the school board approved of the plan. The former Sunnyside Campus has been used for military tactical training by multiple agencies, including the United States Army.

The previous Carnegie campus was located in the former Carnegie Elementary School building off of Scott Street and Airport Boulevard near the Sunnyside neighborhood. The former Carnegie Elementary building had about 42,500 square feet (3,950 m2) of space, including the exterior corridors. The old campus was located adjacent to a horse pasture. Lisa Gray of the Houston Chronicle said that the "shabby" campus was "far not only from most of its students' homes, but also from most Houstonians' consciousness." Gray also said that "By accident, the old elementary school's layout promoted the kind of effortless mixing that the latest designs for offices and research facilities strive to encourage.

Carnegie Vanguard offers only Pre-Advanced Placement (Pre-AP) and Advanced Placement (AP) courses in English, Math, Science, and Social Studies as well as Honors elective courses in core subject areas. The curriculum for every course is written to go above and beyond state and district standards. Carnegie Vanguard courses move at a quicker pace, cover more material, and are project based. They rely heavily on discussion and seminar style delivery of course information and the use, interpretation, and delivery of research.

The Carnegie application process segregates students by whether or not they are Gifted and Talented (G/T) in HISD. Students not already identified as G/T in HISD or attending a private school must submit take a test to see if they are G/T and provide other academic information while qualified HISD G/T don't need to provide anything more.

In 2015, Carnegie Vanguard was the only magnet-only school to have UIL Sports. When other magnet-only schools complained that they were not accepted by HISD UIL Department for UIL sports, the school board took action. The HISD School Board originally thought it was fair take away Carnegie UIL Sports and take away the ability for other magnet-only to get UIL Sports to be consistent and because they falsely thought Title IV was not met at Carnegie Vanguard. But, in November 2015, over 1000 individuals signed an online petition asking the HISD athletics director, Marmion Dambrino, to have Carnegie remain in UIL. The HISD School Board voted that Carnegie will continue to participate in the UIL as well as letting other special school status schools get UIL sports.