Best Charter Schools in Boston 2016

In our 2016 best schools issue, we explore the pros and cons of charter schools, a hot topic on this year’s ballot. As the fight between the pro-charter and anti-charter faithful reaches a fever pitch, what do the numbers say? For our annual rankings this year, we crunched the numbers on both Boston’s charter schools (shown here) and the area’s traditional public high schools. As always, sort the charts by what matters most to you: class size, student-to-teacher ratio, test scores, and so on. (Methodology and sources below.)

School	Rank	High School Enrollment	Avg. Class Size	Student-to-Teacher Ratio	10th Graders Scoring Proficient or Higher on MCAS Reading (%)	10th Graders Scoring Proficient or Higher on MCAS Math (%)	10th Graders Scoring Proficient or Higher on MCAS Science (%)	Avg. SAT Reading	Avg. SAT Writing	Avg. SAT Math	AP Scoring 3-5 (%)	College Counselors	Varsity Sports Teams	Graduation Rate (%)	Attending College (%)
Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School	1	561	19.9	13.0	100	100	99	619	623	670	88.4	3	18	99.2	88.1
Rising Tide Charter Public School	2	276	17.8	11.2	100	94	86	549	552	567	78.9	1	9	100.0	89.0
Pioneer Charter School of Science	3	212	17.2	10.9	100	94	96	492	491	549	43.2	6	31	98.1	91.5
South Shore Charter Public School	4	194	17.4	11.0	95	86	63	540	509	522	75.8	1	10	91.5	97.2
Salem Academy Charter School	5	205	17.2	9.6	98	75	83	502	491	506	48.8	1	13	94.1	87.5
Foxborough Regional Charter School	6	269	22.5	15.3	100	93	80	521	494	500	53.9	3	12	95.5	93.1
Mystic Valley Regional Charter School	7	389	22.7	14.5	100	96	88	518	506	551	No data	2	15	96.9	94.9
Prospect Hill Academy Charter School	8	318	21.6	12.1	99	88	89	492	477	484	33.1	3	13	92.3	98.1
Community Charter School of Cambridge	9	233	17.0	12.2	100	98	91	436	463	510	23.7	2	10	94.0	85.3
Boston Collegiate Charter School	10	306	21.5	10.8	100	97	95	477	492	534	51.6	2	9	82.8	78.6
Kipp Academy Lynn Collegiate High School	11	428	22.7	11.8	95	83	82	488	475	529	41.5	4	7	97.0	96.0
Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter Public School	12	220	23.2	12.7	100	96	84	493	465	477	13.7	3	8	92.9	87.1
Boston Preparatory Charter Public School	13	230	22.1	12.0	98	92	92	447	429	511	14.5	3	8	80.0	96.2
Match Charter Public School	14	298	20.6	14.8	93	89	90	497	493	528	54.3	2	7	72.7	90.0
City on a Hill Charter Public School Circuit Street	15	284	13.1	11.2	100	96	85	406	397	463	12.1	2	9	78.0	84.6
Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers (Horace Mann Charter School)	16	341	18.8	12.2	94	69	37	428	416	426	16.9	0	6	93.5	84.4
Codman Academy Charter Public School	17	147	18.5	10.6	86	46	23	414	380	436	0.0	1	9	71.9	94.1
Boston Green Academy Horace Mann Charter School	18	288	14.9	10.7	74	57	22	384	389	412	2.9	1	13	77.3	66.1

Correction, September 14, 2016: Mystic Valley Regional Charter School has 15 varsity sports teams.

METHODOLOGY: This chart ranks public high schools in towns or districts that lie within, or partially within, I-495. To compile the list, we used the most recent data for each school available at press time from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education and, in certain instances, information self-reported by the schools. In cases of missing information, we used data from a previous year when necessary. We omitted highly specialized schools and schools reporting insufficient information. To calculate the rankings, statistician George Recck, director of the Math Resource Center at Babson College, analyzed the results, comparing each high school’s data points to the overall average for all schools. He then applied a percentage weight to the standardized value for each school to create an aggregate “score,” and used this score to determine each high school’s rank. We considered it more desirable to have a smaller class size, a lower student-to-teacher ratio, and fewer students per college counselor and sports team.

Research by Alene Bouranova, Paola Cigui, Carolyn Freeman, Grace Gulino, Madeleine Maher, Olivia Paradice, and Samantha Pitkin