Compare 750 public, charter and private schools by what matters to your family. Add each child with their own grade and priorities, then see ranked schools, a map, family plans that keep everyone's commute in check, and where each school leads for high school.
Scores are The Lederer Team's own calculation from public data. See how we score schools. Public school attendance depends on district boundaries, which can change: confirm eligibility with the district before choosing a home.
There is no single best school, only the best fit for a particular child. So instead of one fixed ranking, the Explorer scores every school on several separate measures and lets you decide how much each one matters. Every number comes from public records or from what schools publish about themselves. We never copy ratings from GreatSchools, Niche or any other ranking site.
Each child gets a fit score from 0 to 10 for every school in range. It is a weighted average of the category scores below, using that child's sliders as the weights. If Academics is set to 8 and Sports to 2, academics counts four times as much as sports. The colored bar on each school shows which categories produced its score.
Profiles such as Athlete, Performer and STEM kid are starting points that set the sliders for you. You can change any slider afterwards.
Which categories apply depends on the child's grade next fall. High school students are scored on academics, college outcomes, sports, arts, STEM, clubs and their own interests. Younger children are scored on academics and on where each school leads for high school. School size and commute apply at every grade.
| Category | How it's measured |
|---|---|
| Academics | Public and charter schools: the average share of students meeting the state standard in English and math (CAASPP, spring 2025), ranked as a percentile against every California school at the same level. For high schools this is 79% of the score and college outcomes are the other 21%. Private high schools don't take state tests, so their academic score is their College Outcomes Index. Private elementary and middle schools don't publish comparable results, so most aren't scored on academics yet. |
| College outcomes | Our College Outcomes Index. 60% is the share of graduates who enroll at four-year colleges (state-measured for public schools, school-reported for private schools, with a 9-point adjustment because state tracking runs lower than school reports). 40% is selective placement: the share of graduates enrolling at colleges that admit under 40% of applicants, using U.S. College Scorecard admission rates. Selective placement is only possible where a school publishes enrollment counts by college. Where it doesn't, that 40% is held at the midpoint. |
| Sports | Half is the number of varsity teams per gender, compared with the largest program in the two counties. Half is section and state championships since 2016 (North Coast Section results, and CIF state titles for Oakland Section schools). Titles use a square root so a few championships count, but one dynasty program can't outweigh everything else. |
| Arts | 35% theater, musical, dance and film programs; 30% performing ensembles such as bands, orchestras and choirs (8 or more earns full credit); 20% advanced arts courses on the school's official UC course list (20 or more earns full credit); 15% outside recognition such as festival results. |
| STEM | Half is the number of AP math, science and computer science courses on the school's official UC course list. Half is competitive STEM teams and clubs such as robotics, Science Olympiad and math team (5 or more earns full credit). Schools without AP courses are measured by their advanced course catalog instead. |
| Clubs and activities | 80% the number of student clubs, 20% civic and speaking programs such as debate, mock trial and Model UN. |
| Elementary and middle school programs | For children below 9th grade: Arts (performing ensembles, art, theater), STEM (science specialist or lab, coding, robotics, math or problem-solving teams), Sports (interscholastic teams in the middle grades, PE specialists in elementary), Clubs, World languages (10 for immersion or languages from kindergarten, 6 for language classes, 3 for before or after school only), Before and after care on campus, and Small classes (average class size, adjusted for co-teaching). Researched school by school from school and district sites, starting with Lamorinda, Piedmont, Bentley and Head-Royce. |
| Child's interests | Matches the activities you select. For a sport, championships in that sport. For music, the number of ensembles. For other activities, whether the school offers a team or program. |
| School size | Enrollment compared with typical sizes for that level: an exact match scores 10, one size off scores 5. |
| Short commute | An estimated morning drive from your closest location: straight-line distance, plus 35% for roads, at 40 miles per hour, plus 4 minutes. 10 minutes or less scores 10; 45 minutes or more scores 0. Real drive times vary with traffic. |
For children below 9th grade, part of a school's value is where it leads. Each elementary and middle school is scored on the high school it feeds into, judged by that child's own high school priorities. How certain the path is changes the score:
With two or more children, the Explorer builds family plans: the best combination of schools for each location you entered. Each plan's family score blends the children's fit with the morning drive, plus a small bonus when children share a campus. The drive counts for 15% when the children's Short commute sliders sit at 3, more when they're higher (up to 30%) and not at all when they're at 0. Choose Best per child and each plan shows every child’s own top school for that location instead, with the approximate drive to each drop-off. Tuition is approximate, shown per child and as a family total.
When a school hasn't been measured on something your child cares about, it's held at an average 5.0, shown faded in the score bar and flagged on the card. Missing data neither helps nor hurts a school. A school whose score rests mostly on those averages can't appear in a child's top 10, so the top of each list always reflects real data. Schools with no usable measures at all are listed separately as not yet scored.
By default the Explorer shows only the public schools a family could attend without a transfer: the schools whose attendance areas cover each location you enter. Attendance areas come from each district’s own school locator map. For an address or neighborhood, that’s the elementary, middle and high school zoned for that spot. For a whole city, it’s every school zoned for at least 3% of the city’s area, labeled with its share, so a school that covers only the hills on one side of town says so.
Mapped so far: Oakland, Berkeley, West Contra Costa, Alameda, Mt. Diablo, San Ramon Valley, Pleasanton, Hayward, Newark and the Acalanes high schools. Schools in other districts show for any home in the district until their maps are added, and say so on the card. District programs without their own attendance area are listed as by application. You can widen the list to every school in your district (an intradistrict transfer, subject to space) or to every public school within your radius. Private and charter schools always use the radius, since they enroll from anywhere.
Some districts don’t assign schools by address at all. Berkeley Unified assigns elementary seats by application within three zones (middle school is by address, with Longfellow open by choice), and Oakland Unified uses an enrollment application where living in an attendance area gives priority but not a guarantee. The Explorer flags these districts at the top of the results and on every school card.
Elementary and middle schools are scored on the high school their attendance area feeds. When an area splits between two high schools, the path is weighted by how much of the area each one serves, unless you entered an address, which settles it.
A zoned school is never a guarantee. Districts redraw boundaries, make exceptions, and when a school is full they can place newly enrolling students at another school. For a whole city, the Explorer lists every school that serves part of it, so a school listed for a city may not serve a particular home there. Always get the school assignment for a specific address from the district, in writing, before choosing a home.
Scores never use the race, ethnicity, income, language or disability makeup of a school's students, and the Explorer has no demographic filters. We don't use home prices or neighborhood characteristics. Attendance areas come straight from district maps and are shown only to say which public schools serve a location. The learning support option only adds information about specialized schools and district services. It never changes how other schools rank.
| Data | Source |
|---|---|
| Schools, grades, enrollment | California Department of Education (CDE) School Directory and Census Day Enrollment 2025-26; CDE Private School Affidavits 2025-26 |
| Test results | CAASPP Smarter Balanced results, spring 2025, all students |
| College enrollment | CDE College-Going Rate, class of 2022-23; NCES Private School Survey 2023-24; school profiles and published matriculation lists |
| College selectivity | U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard admission rates |
| Courses | University of California A-G course lists, 2026-27 |
| Athletics | North Coast Section results history 2016-2026; CIF state championship records; MaxPreps team listings |
| Arts, clubs, STEM teams | School websites, course catalogs and published school profiles, reviewed school by school |
| Tuition and aid | School admissions pages, 2026-27 where published |
| District service areas | CDE district boundaries 2025-26 |
| Attendance areas | District school locator maps: Oakland Unified 2026-27, Berkeley Unified zones, and SchoolSite Locator maps for West Contra Costa, Acalanes, Alameda, Mt. Diablo, Hayward, Newark, Pleasanton (2024-25) and San Ramon Valley (2016-17 map, being updated). City limits from the U.S. Census. |
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Please verify. Attendance boundaries, programs, tuition and enrollment rules change. Confirm eligibility with the school or district before relying on it in a purchase decision. Scores are The Lederer Team's own calculation from public data and what schools publish. They do not measure teaching quality or school culture, and we do not recommend specific schools. This page is for research.
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