* based on state rankings
Earlier today, we ranked the top 10 public high schools in Orange County based on the California Department
of Education's just-released Academic Performance Index (API) rankings.
Now we turn our cynical gaze at the top 10 public middle schools.
Amazingly, Irvine Unified School District schools not only take the top three spots, but all five district middle schools cracked the top 10 in Orange County.
The list that follows is based on Orange County rankings versus the rest of the state. The Department of Education also ranked schools based on the APIs of schools with similar demographics.
]
1.) Rancho
San Joaquin, Irvine (951)
2.) Sierra
Vista, Irvine (936)
3.) Lakeside, Irvine
(935)
4.) Pioneer, Tustin (930)
5.) Sharon
Christa McAuliffe, Los Alamitos (917)
6.) Venado, Irvine (914)
7.) South
Lake, Irvine (908)
8.) Ladera
Ranch (904)
9.) Harry
C. Fulton, Fountain Valley (903)
10.)
Don Juan Avila, Aliso Viejo (898)
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.