Princeton Elementary School Cracks Top 10 In New Statewide U.S. News Ranking

PRINCETON, NJ — Princeton Charter School is the sixth-best public elementary school in New Jersey, according to new rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

The 2027 Best Elementary Schools rankings, released Tuesday, placed the Bunn Drive school sixth out of 1,386 elementary schools ranked in the state. It was the highest-ranked Mercer County school on the list. The school also ranked No. 4 among the state’s 769 ranked middle schools.

Among charter schools, it ranked No. 2 for elementary and No. 1 for middle school in New Jersey.

So what earned it such a high spot? Test scores.

U.S. News bases its rankings mostly on how students perform on state reading and math tests, while accounting for student background. At Princeton Charter School, 90 percent of students scored at or above the proficient level in math, and 88 percent did so in reading. Statewide, those numbers were 39 percent in math and 50 percent in reading.

The school ranked fifth in the state for elementary reading proficiency and eighth for elementary math proficiency. Its middle school students ranked second in the state in math and 13th in reading.

U.S. News also rated the school’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.

The school dropped slightly from last year, when it was No. 3 among New Jersey elementary schools. In those rankings, it tied for first in the state in elementary reading proficiency.

Princeton Charter School enrolls 423 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It has 40 full-time teachers and a student-teacher ratio of 11:1, according to U.S. News. About 8 percent of students are economically disadvantaged.

The curriculum mostly focuses on language arts, mathematics, science, history and geography, foreign languages and the arts.

The school was founded in 1997, after New Jersey passed the Charter School Program Act of 1995. Admission is by lottery, open to all town residents and free of charge. The school uses a weighted lottery, which doubles the chances of qualified economically disadvantaged students winning an open seat.

School 28 in Paterson took the top spot in the state rankings.

The top 25 public elementary schools in New Jersey are:

1. School 28 - Paterson
2. Milton Avenue School - Chatham
3. Glenwood School - Short Hills
4. Cornelia F. Bradford School - Jersey City
5. Thomas Edison Energysmart Charter School - Somerset
6. Princeton Charter School - Princeton
7. Harrison Elementary School - Livingston
8. H W Mountz Elementary School - Spring Lake
9. Alexander Hamilton School - Glen Rock
10. Orchard Elementary School - Ridgewood
11. Sara M. Gilmore Academy - Union City
12. Forrestdale School - Rumson
13. Hilldale School - Pine Brook
14. Hatikvah International Academy Charter School - East Brunswick
15. Salt Brook School - New Providence
16. Mount Prospect Elementary School - Basking Ridge
17. South Mountain School - Millburn
18. Radburn Elementary School - Fair Lawn
19. Franklin Elementary School - Summit
20. Somerville Elementary School - Ridgewood
21. Mount Pleasant Elementary School - Livingston
22. Milltown Primary School - Bridgewater
23. Wyoming School - Millburn
24. Central School - Haddonfield
25. Berkeley Elementary - Westwood

To see the full rankings, visit the U.S. News website.

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