Cambridge's King School Ranks First Among Massachusetts Elementary Schools in U.S. News List; Baldwin and Banneker Also in Top 10

Three Cambridge elementary schools placed in the top 10 of U.S. News & World Report's ranking of Massachusetts elementary schools, Cambridge Day reported Thursday. The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School, a Cambridge public school, took the top spot. The Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School, an independent pre-K through sixth grade charter school in North Cambridge, ranked fifth, and the public Maria L. Baldwin School ranked seventh.

Other Cambridge public elementary schools placed in the top 100: Tobin Montessori School at 23 and Morse Elementary School at 34. The Amigos School was 101st. More than 700 elementary schools across the state were ranked, according to Cambridge Day.

The ranking is built mostly on state test results from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS. The U.S. News formula weights those scores along with the socioeconomic characteristics of a school's students. When schools tied, the ranking favored the one with the lower student-to-teacher ratio. The King school's ratio is 10.2 to 1 and Baldwin's is 11 to 1, Cambridge Day reported.

Both schools were among the district's top performers in newly released MCAS data for last school year. Baldwin had the district's highest share of third- through eighth-graders meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations: 79% in English language arts and 83% in math. The King school ranked fourth in the district in English and fifth in math, at 67% in both.

"This type of recognition only happens when there is enormous amount of hard work, dedication, and talent going on within a school community," Superintendent David Murphy said at the previous week's School Committee meeting. Murphy also said the list is not the only standard by which Cambridge schools should be measured, even as the district should "celebrate the good work" it reflects.

The King school's rise has taken a decade. It has improved in the state's rankings over that period and had one of the highest average student growth percentile scores of any school on last year's math test. That measure compares how much a student's scores changed against students who started at similar levels. The school was named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education in 2024, a recognition based on MCAS results and success in narrowing achievement gaps, and it runs a Mandarin-English immersion program that Cambridge Day describes as one of two of its kind at public schools in New England.

The picture is not uniformly upward. In English and math, fewer King students in grades three through eight met or exceeded expectations than the year before, Cambridge Day reported, mirroring a statewide decline in MCAS scores since the pandemic.

Parents reached by Cambridge Day were proud but measured. Annie Holland, the parent of a Baldwin third-grader and co-president of Friends of Baldwin, a nonprofit that supports the school, called it an "amazing place" and said the ranking was "a great reflection of such a well-run school." Kerry O'Connor, the group's treasurer, said she was "so proud to be a Baldwin parent." Jia-Jing Lee, a King parent, said she was "glad to see [the MLK] school among those recognized."

Several parents questioned how much the scores reveal. "Test scores do matter," Lee said. "But at the same time, we need to understand what they actually measure, what they don't measure, and how much they can really tell us about a school's overall quality of education." She said it was important to look at factors behind the scores, such as differences in access to resources. O'Connor pointed to creative and physical education, which tests do not capture. "Test scores are only one benchmark of a healthy childhood," she said.

O'Connor had opposed classroom changes at Baldwin last May that affected the school's gym and moved a longtime art classroom to the basement, Cambridge Day noted. Baldwin parents credited the school's educators and enrichment programs run through Friends of Baldwin, including a STEM Day, field trips and guest speakers.

Skepticism about the weight of state testing has a policy history in Massachusetts. Voters removed passing the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement in 2024, Cambridge Day noted.

Sebastian Arnold, a King parent, said the progress was a "testament to what can be done in Cambridge." "The best part of the news for me isn't where MLK and Baldwin are today, but how far they traveled to get there," he said. "It's time now to replicate that progress at other CPS schools."

The ranking does not measure everything parents value, and its weighting choices are U.S. News's own. The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education publishes school-level MCAS results and accountability reports for every school in the district.