EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — Hatikvah International Academy Charter School ranks among the 15 best public elementary schools in New Jersey, according to new rankings from U.S. News & World Report.
The 2027 Best Elementary Schools rankings, released Tuesday, placed the Lexington Avenue school 14th out of 1,386 elementary schools ranked in the state. It also ranked No. 12 out of 769 ranked middle schools.
Among New Jersey charter schools, Hatikvah ranked No. 3 for elementary and No. 4 for middle school.
U.S. News bases its rankings mostly on how students perform on state reading and math tests, while accounting for student background. At Hatikvah, 88 percent of students scored at or above the proficient level in reading, and 80 percent did so in math. Statewide, those numbers were 50 percent in reading and 39 percent in math.
The school ranked 17th in the state for elementary reading proficiency and 21st for elementary math proficiency. Its middle school students ranked 10th in reading and 17th in math.
U.S. News rated Hatikvah's performance "well above expectations" in all four categories: elementary reading and math, and middle school reading and math. That measure compares how students actually did with how they would be expected to do based on their backgrounds.
This year, U.S. News added data from state education agencies, collected by RTI International, for the first time. That allowed researchers to look at performance across all proficiency levels, not just whether students passed. The test data comes from the 2023-24 school year.
Hatikvah ranked No. 12 among the state's elementary schools last year.
The school enrolls 657 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It has 47 full-time teachers, all of them certified, and a student-teacher ratio of 14:1, according to U.S. News. About 9% of students are economically disadvantaged.
Hatikvah opened in September 2010 as a partial-immersion Modern Hebrew language public school, following the International Baccalaureate approach. Grades 6 through 8 are a fully authorized International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme. It was New Jersey's first Hebrew-language charter school.
The school is tuition-free and accepts students of all backgrounds.
School 28 in Paterson took the top spot in the state rankings.
The top 25 public elementary schools in New Jersey are:
To see the full rankings, visit the U.S. News website.
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