3 Middletown Schools Ranked As Among Best In NJ

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — All three of Middletown's middle schools, but no high school or elementary school, made a new list released this week by U.S. News & World Report as being among the best in New Jersey.

To determine the rankings, U.S. News used data from the U.S. Department of Education to analyze two areas at each school:

• Math and reading proficiency — or how well students perform on state assessments.
• Math and reading performance — or how well they perform compared with expectations.

Using that criteria, many school districts in the state did not even make the list, such as Matawan-Aberdeen, Brick or Holmdel.

Here are the three Middletown schools that ranked as among the best in the state for standardized test scores:

• Thompson Middle School, ranked No. 127 in the state
• Bayshore Middle School, ranked No. 410 in the state
• Thorne Middle School, ranked No. 364 in the state

For comparison, several Toms River schools also made the list:

• Toms River Intermediate School North, ranked No. 417 in the state
• Toms River Intermediate School East, ranked No. 450 in the state
• Toms River Intermediate School South, ranked No. 536-715 in the state

The state assessment data used in the rankings is from the 2018-19 school year and, therefore, predates any effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on test-taking.

Nationally, California has 5,534 ranked elementary schools — the most of any state — followed by Texas at 4,446; New York at 2,211; Florida at 2,128; and Illinois at 2,038 schools.

California also has the most ranked middle schools with 2,319, followed by Texas at 1,942; Illinois at 1,243; New York at 1,219; and Florida at 997.

See the complete list of 2021's Best K-8 Schools.

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