The Best Public Schools in Massachusetts

We are honored to recognize 29 high quality public schools in Massachusetts. At each of these outstanding schools, the learning community is making outsized impacts on student performance. Congratulations to the parents, students, administrators, support staff, and especially the hardworking and dedicated teachers at these awesome schools. 

Schools are complex ecosystems that cannot be entirely described by one number. Our ratings consider one small facet of a school community: test scores. We do this in a more fair and equitable way than other school rating sites by controlling for variables such as the largest influencer of test scores: socioeconomic status. We want to be clear that schools with low scores in our system can absolutely have a positive learning environment and hardworking and dedicated teachers. Since our ratings only measure test scores as the output of education (albeit within the context of each school’s demographic profile), we have to recognize that low test scores can be the result of both external factors not in the control of the school, and internal factors such as focusing less on standardized testing compared to other schools.

Click here to see ratings for all public schools in Massachusetts. Most of the schools on this list are located in Massachusetts’ three largest cities: Boston, Springfield and Worcester.

We’ve learned a few things from our work with OutPerforming Schools. Based on interviews with administrators at 13 OutPerforming schools in Chicago, we have identified three characteristics that tend to be present at schools where kids are consistently exceeding expectations:

1. These schools have strong leaders who create a culture of excellence and inclusion; 
2. They are places where teachers have high morale and little turnover; 
3. There are at least three collaborative relationships with community organizations providing holistic support. 

Kids thrive in these environments!

Unfair Ratings Hurt Schools and Neighborhoods

It’s a shame that these schools are portrayed poorly by the popular school ratings websites. These 29 schools often get overlooked by parents because of the school ratings assigned by GreatSchools, which are published on all the popular real estate search portals.

The fact that national realtor organizations such as Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com endorse GreatSchools’ ratings on their websites has contributed to parents trusting their validity. These ratings influence the purchase decisions of homeowners for whom school quality is an important factor.

Anecdotally, real estate brokers report that parents, particularly those who are moving to a new city, want a 7/10 rating or better for their children’s school(s). If the ratings are under 7, many parents are likely to pass over the school and the neighborhoods and homes the school serves. All 29 of these schools score below a 7 on GreatSchools ratings system.

But trusting GreatSchools ratings alone is a mistake.

The reason is twofold: 

1. Research has shown that test scores are 70-80% attributed to the parents socioeconomic status, not school quality. 
2. GreatSchools does not take into account each school’s demographic profile when analyzing test scores.

As a result, if you rely on GreatSchools ratings, schools where parents have the highest incomes tend to get high scores, and schools where parents have diverse or moderate to low incomes tend to get low scores. Notice that school quality isn’t even part of the equation.

As a result of these biased ratings, neighborhoods and entire cities across the nation are perceived by parents as undesirable simply because the schools have unfair low ratings. For two examples, read this article by our Founder, Tom Brown.

A Prejudiced Narrative

A prejudiced narrative is being supported that schools with more White kids are the best schools, and schools with more Black and Brown faces are low quality schools.

While we all hope for a society where everyone is treated equally, when it comes to both schools and real estate, race and racism– both individual and systemic — are prevalent.

For a specific example of what we are up against, check out the recent blog post published by Peter Piazza, an educational equity scholar and the Director of School Quality Measures for the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment. Find the tweet and story here, and please retweet!

SchoolSparrow’s Ratings

That’s why we’ve created a more fair and equitable rating system that takes into account each school’s demographic profile.

Our message to parents is this: The school ratings at SchoolSparrow will tell you more truth about how the school community, not socioeconomic status, is impacting student performance on test scores. After all, isn’t that what most parents want?

The good news for parents living in Massachusetts — and the reason for today’s post — is that Massachusetts has more high quality public schools than ratings by GreatSchools would lead you to believe. This post highlights 29 of the best Massachusetts public schools that have not received the credit they deserve. Our hats are off to these high quality public schools in Massachusetts. We see you!

Massachusetts Top 29 OutPerforming Public Schools

We found these schools by searching for every public school in Massachusetts where greater than 80% of the students are considered economically disadvantaged, and the SchoolSparrow rating is 7/10 or better. 

The average SchoolSparrow rating for these schools is 7.9. 

The average GreatSchools rating for these schools is 3.9.

These schools are ranked below by the greatest difference between our ratings and the ratings assigned by GreatSchools.

Rank	Name	City	SchoolSparrow Score	GreatSchools Score	Diff
1	Harvard-Kent	Boston	10	4	6
2	German Gerena Community School	Springfield	9	3	6
3	White Street	Springfield	10	4	6
4	O W Holmes	Boston	8	3	5
5	South Lawrence East Elem School	Lawrence	7	2	5
6	Irwin M. Jacobs Elementary School	New Bedford	7	2	5
7	Kensington International School	Springfield	9	4	5
8	Renaissance Community Innovation School	New Bedford	7	2	5
9	Sumner Avenue	Springfield	10	5	5
10	William N. DeBerry	Springfield	7	2	5
11	Burncoat Street	Worcester	8	4	4
12	Carlton M. Viveiros Elementary Sch	Fall River	7	3	4
13	Chandler Elementary Community	Worcester	7	3	4
14	Frederick Harris	Springfield	8	4	4
15	Gen John J Stefanik	Chicopee	9	5	4
16	Glickman Elementary	Springfield	7	3	4
17	Milton Bradley School	Springfield	8	4	4
18	Samuel Bowles	Springfield	7	3	4
19	Union Hill School	Worcester	10	6	4
20	Washington	Springfield	8	4	4
21	Michael J Perkins	Boston	7	4	3
22	Daniel B Brunton	Springfield	7	4	3
23	Homer Street	Springfield	7	4	3
24	John J Doran	Fall River	8	5	3
25	Mary M Lynch	Springfield	7	4	3
26	Morningside Community School	Pittsfield	7	4	3
27	Rebecca M Johnson	Springfield	8	5	3
28	Belmont Street Community	Worcester	8	6	2
29	Canterbury	Worcester	8	6	2

Please Share our Message

Low school ratings in neighborhoods with histories of inequality do not merely reflect that inequality; they help drive it. @zillow @redfin @realtordotcom, please be fair in your portrayal of historically underserved neighborhoods and cities in the US.

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