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North Carolina is home to more than a few top-rated elementary and middle schools, including several in metro Raleigh and the Research Triangle, new rankings show.
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White Oak Elementary in Apex was the region’s highest-ranking K-8 school, placing third on U.S. News & World Report’s best elementary schools list for 2027. Raleigh’s Quest Academy followed at No. 4, jumping seven spots from last year, data show.
The annual report, published Tuesday, Oct. 20, also recognized Mills Park Middle School in Cary among the state’s top-performing middle schools.
The Expedition School, a public charter school in Hillsborough, also ranked high in the middle school category, placing fifth overall.
This year’s analysis looked at student performance in math and reading “across all proficiency levels,” U.S. News said in a news release. The rankings draw on publicly available data collected from state education agencies by RTI International, plus data from the U.S. Education Department.
“This refined approach gives families, educators and community leaders an even clearer view of academic achievement, helping them identify standard-setting schools and support continued success for all students,” Eric Brooks, U.S. News director of education data analysis, said in the release.
Here are the top-ranked K-8 schools in the Triangle:
Charter schools are taxpayer-funded schools that are exempt from some of the regulations that traditional public schools are required to follow.
Unlike private schools that accept taxpayer-funded vouchers from the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program, charter schools are still considered public schools, The News & Observer previously reported.
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Last fall, the Trump Administration awarded $53 million to the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools (NCAPCS) to increase the state’s number of charter school seats, the N&O’s T. Keung Hui reported. The private, non-profit group advocates for charter schools across North Carolina.
“We’re really excited that the award is being given to the Association because the last one was given to the (State) Office of Charter Schools, and they were able to do a lot of great things with it,” Rhonda Dillingham, executive director of NCAPCS, said at the time. “But this time it’s being given to the non-profit support organization in the state.”
For the 2027 rankings, U.S. News evaluated schools based on students’ performance in math and reading on state standardized tests.
Half the formula analyzed test scores alone, while the other took students’ socioeconomic backgrounds into account.
Each school’s test scores were summed using four ranking indicators:
From there, schools were given a 0-100 overall score “reflecting how well each … ranked within its state on a percentile basis,” U.S. News said.
Portions of this story previously appeared in The Raleigh News & Observer. T. Keung Hui contributed reporting.
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This story was originally published October 20, 2026 at 12:30 PM.