Cincinnati’s Spencer Center for Gifted and Exceptional Students has risen from No. 8 last year to claim the top spot among Ohio elementary schools in the 2027 U.S. News & World Report rankings released Tuesday, October 20.
The Cincinnati Public Schools building serves students in grades 3 through 12, which means it qualifies for the elementary rankings, where schools are evaluated on math and reading proficiency in third through fifth grades, the Enquirer reported.
At the same time, Cincinnati’s Walnut Hills High School was dethroned as the No. 1 middle school in the state. The Cincinnati Public school, serving grades 7 through 12, was named the ninth-best middle school in Ohio this year, while Orchard Middle School in Solon, a Cleveland suburb, took the No. 1 spot.
Spencer Center is joined in the elementary top ten by another Cincinnati school, Montgomery Elementary at No. 8. The rest of the elementary list is led by Solon’s Grace L. Roxbury Elementary at No. 2, Parkside Elementary at No. 3 and Dorothy E. Lewis Elementary at No. 5, with Wells Academy in Steubenville fourth and Deer Run Elementary in Dublin sixth.
The middle school top ten behind Orchard includes Marion Local Elementary in Maria Stein second, Miller City third, Fallen Timbers in Whitehouse fourth and Rocky River fifth, followed by Fort Loramie, Versailles, Chagrin Falls, Walnut Hills ninth and New Bremen tenth.
U.S. News said the latest rankings cover 46,713 elementary schools and 24,756 middle schools nationally. Proficiency on state tests makes up the greatest part of the methodology, while performance index and student-teacher ratios are applied to break ties in overall scores.
Half of the ranking formula was based on test scores themselves, and the other half analyzed state test results in the context of socioeconomic demographics, including students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and students representing ethnic minorities, according to the report.
For Cincinnati Public Schools, the release brings a split result to celebrate and to chase: a No. 1 elementary ranking for Spencer Center, and a Walnut Hills middle school program still in the statewide top ten even after giving up the top spot to Solon.