Top 100 School Districts In Massachusetts For 2020: New Rankings

Westford has the top-ranked school district in Massachusetts, according to new rankings released Monday by Niche. The education ranking and review site ordered dozens of school districts from Andover to Wachusett in its 2020 rankings, and we compiled the top 100 below:

1. Westford Public Schools
2. Hopkinton Public Schools
3. Lexington Public Schools
4. Weston Public Schools
5. Public Schools of Brookline
6. Westwood Public Schools
7. Newton Public Schools
8. Westborough Public Schools
9. Longmeadow Public Schools
10. Wellesley Public Schools
11. Wayland Public Schools
12. Belmont Public Schools
13. Winchester Public Schools
14. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District
15. Shrewsbury Public Schools
16. Needham Public Schools
17. Dover-Sherborn Regional School District
18. Nauset Public Schools
19. Amherst-Pelham Regional School District
20. Sharon Public Schools
21. Bedford Public Schools
22. Harvard Public Schools
23. Lynnfield Public Schools
24. Natick Public Schools
25. Hingham Public Schools
26. Duxbury Public Schools
27. Milton Public Schools
28. Medfield Public Schools
29. Cambridge Public Schools
30. Masconomet Public Schools
31. Marblehead Public Schools
32. Franklin Public Schools
33. Norwell Public Schools
34. Groton-Dunstable Regional School District
35. Quincy Public Schools
36. Nashoba Public Schools
37. Mendon-Upton Regional School District
38. Scituate Public Schools
39. Canton Public Schools
40. Chelmsford Public Schools
41. Andover Public Schools
42. Easton Public Schools
43. Silver Lake Public Schools
44. Medway Public Schools
45. Lenox Public Schools
46. Arlington Public Schools
47. Burlington Public Schools
48. Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District
49. Ashland Public Schools
50. North Reading Public Schools
51. Littleton Public Schools
52. Northampton Public Schools
53. Ipswich Public Schools
54. Mansfield Public Schools
55. Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District
56. Marshfield Public Schools
57. Falmouth Public Schools
58. Wachusett Public Schools
59. Manchester Essex Regional School District
60. Hanover Public Schools
61. Foxborough Public Schools
62. Old Rochester Public Schools
63. Tantasqua Public Schools
64. Braintree Public Schools
65. Walpole Public Schools
66. Holliston Public Schools
67. Cohasset Public Schools
68. Auburn Public Schools
69. Berkshire Hills Public Schools
70. Lunenburg Public Schools
71. Reading Public Schools
72. Melrose Public Schools
73. Swampscott Public Schools
74. Millis Public Schools
75. Newburyport Public Schools
76. Norton Public Schools
77. North Andover Public Schools
78. Norwood Public Schools
79. Sutton Public Schools
80. Somerville Public Schools
81. Beverly Public Schools
82. Grafton Public Schools
83. Fairhaven Public Schools
84. Seekonk Public Schools
85. Revere Public Schools
86. King Philip Public Schools
87. Georgetown Public Schools
88. Dedham Public Schools
89. Malden Public Schools
90. Freetown-Lakeville Regional School District
91. Amesbury Public Schools
92. Barnstable Public Schools
93. Rockport Public Schools
94. Stoneham Public Schools
95. Hull Public Schools
96. Hopedale Public Schools
97. Central Berkshire Public Schools
98. Danvers Public Schools
99. Belchertown Public Schools
100. North Attleborough Public Schools

Don't see your school district? Check the full rankings here.

Niche looked at more than 94,000 public schools, 4,100 private schools and nearly 11,000 school districts across the country. The rankings are meant to help parents and students find schools that best fit their needs.

“Unlike traditional school rankings, which rely almost exclusively on test scores and academic performance, Niche’s rankings provide a real-life view of what it’s like to attend a given school,” the company said in a news release.

Comments from current students, alumni, and parents are included in the analysis, as well as observations about things like campus life, extracurricular activities, sports options, diversity, and programs for gifted and special needs students.

“Parents and students need more than test-score data,” Luke Skurman, CEO at Niche, said in the news release. “They need to understand what it’s really like to attend a school before they start the application or registration process.”

For the first time, Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, were ranked the top private and public high schools, respectively, in the nation.

2020 top public high schools:

1. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology
2. Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
3. Walter Payton College Prep
4. Stuyvesant High School
5. Bergen County Academies

2020 top private high schools

1. Phillips Exeter Academy
2. St. Mark’s School of Texas
3. Phillips Academy
4. The College Preparatory School
5. Trinity School

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.