Millburn Public Schools Ranked #1 For Best District In NJ

MILLBURN, NJ — The Millburn Township School District has risen to the top of Niche’s 2022 Best School Districts in New Jersey list, ranking number 1.

Niche.com — a website that connects colleges and schools with students and families — has just released its 2022 Best Schools and Districts rankings. Millburn's schools not only ranked 1 for Best School Districts in New Jersey, but it also ranked sixth for Best School Districts in the New York City Area.

Millburn High School individually was also ranked 14th for Best Public Schools in New Jersey.

Just last week, it was announced that 32 Millburn High School students are semifinalists for the National Merit Scholarship program — a higher number of qualifying students than almost every public high school in the state.

As a district, Millburn surpassed last year’s 1 in New Jersey, Princeton Public Schools, which is now ranked 3.

Here is a list of Niche’s top ten school districts in New Jersey:

1. Millburn Township School District
2. Northern Valley Regional High School District (Bergen County)
3. Princeton Public Schools
4. West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District
5. Livingston Board of Education School District
6. Tenafly Public School District
7. Ridgewood Public School District
8. Pascack Valley Regional High School District
9. Summit Public School District
10. Moorestown Township Public School District

According to Niche’s website, the Best School Districts ranking is based on “rigorous analysis of academic and student life data from the U.S. Department of Education along with test scores, college data, and ratings collected from millions of Niche users.”

The highest weighted factors include parent and student ratings, graduation rates, SAT/ACT scores, teacher quality and extracurricular activities offered among others.

However, Niche said a major change to the criteria for 2022 was a de-emphasis on SAT and ACT scores. Any factor for test scores has now been reduced by one third, they wrote.

“Similar to the decision made for the 2022 Best Colleges ranking, Niche chose to alter the methodology for several reasons: acknowledgement of socioeconomic and racial disparities perpetuated by standardized tests, challenges making appointments to test in-person due to COVID-19, and an increasing number of institutions adopting test-optional policies,” Niche wrote.

Millburn is the first of two New Jersey public districts that are ranked in the top ten of Best School Districts in the New York City Area — the other being Northern Valley Regional High School District at number 7.

Now in Niche's eighth year, the K-12 school rankings include updated data for 94,491 public schools, 2,489 private schools, and 11,846 school districts nationwide.

"While traditional rankings rely almost exclusively on metrics like test scores and academic performance, Niche's rankings provide a more personal view of a school," they said.

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