Merion Elementary School in Merion Station earned the top spot among public elementary schools in the Philadelphia region in U.S. News & World Report's 2027 rankings, released Tuesday, Oct. 20.
The kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school, part of the Lower Merion School District, earned the top regional spot in a year when U.S. News evaluated roughly 46,000 public elementary schools nationwide. Fairview Elementary School in Pittsburgh claimed the No. 1 ranking statewide in Pennsylvania, according to Patch, which first reported the regional list.
There is no single national ranking. U.S. News ranks schools at the state and district levels, with charter schools evaluated separately.
How the rankings work
Half of each school's score came from a "performance index" measuring student results on state math and reading tests. The other half factored those results against socioeconomic characteristics, aiming to show how well a school educates students regardless of economic background.
"By incorporating direct state data across all proficiency levels, the 2027 rankings offer a richer, more complete picture of how elementary and middle schools are driving student growth," Eric Brooks, U.S. News director of education data analysis, said in a news release.
The 2027 edition marked a methodology shift. Previous rankings relied on pass-or-fail proficiency reporting. For the 2027 rankings, researchers used data across all proficiency levels collected from state education agencies by RTI International, alongside U.S. Department of Education records. The assessment data came from the 2023-2024 school year, according to the U.S. News methodology.
What it means locally
Merion Elementary enrolls 438 students, according to federal education data. The school is one of six elementary schools in the Lower Merion School District, which serves about 8,533 students across 11 schools.
Districts with three or more ranked elementary schools and at least two in the top 75% statewide also receive their own internal ranking under the U.S. News system. Lower Merion School District, with six elementary schools, qualifies for that district-level ranking.
