Brookline High School has returned to Massachusetts’ top 20 in the latest U.S. News rankings. The result is encouraging, but the longer-term story - especially around STEM, academic access and Brookline’s evolving school leadership - is more interesting than a single number.
Brookline High School has climbed to No. 19 among Massachusetts public high schools in the newly released 2026–27 U.S. News & World Report rankings, up from No. 28 last year.
BHS also finished just ahead of Newton South, which ranked No. 20. Massachusetts remains exceptionally competitive nationally: 46.7% of the state’s high schools placed in the top quarter nationwide, the highest share of any state.
For Brookline families and homeowners, that is good news. But one year’s ranking only tells part of the story.
Brookline High’s statewide ranking has moved considerably over the past six years:
Year
Massachusetts Rank
2021
#20
2022
#34
2023
#35
2024
#38
2025
#28
2026
#19
After reaching a low point of No. 38 in 2024, Brookline gained ten places in 2025 and another nine this year.
That means BHS has improved 19 places in two years and now sits at its best position in this six-year comparison. Brookline was No. 20 in the 2021 ranking.
Brookline High’s two-year rebound
2024 — #38 ↓ +10 places
2025 — #28 ↓ +9 places
2026 — #19
19-place improvement in two years
This is a clearer way to visualize rankings than a conventional line chart, where an improving rank can misleadingly appear to move downward.
It is also a reminder that rankings are volatile. A school does not fundamentally transform simply because it moves ten or fifteen places in a particular year.
U.S. News currently bases its ranking on college readiness, college curriculum breadth, state assessment proficiency and performance, outcomes for underserved students, and graduation rate.
The ranking is a useful benchmark. It is not a complete description of the school.
STEM tells a different story
Brookline’s national STEM ranking is worth watching separately.
BHS ranked:
2022 — #38 nationally 2024 — #50 nationally 2025 — #45 nationally 2026 — outside the top 50
Six Massachusetts schools did make this year’s national STEM top 50: Lincoln-Sudbury, Concord-Carlisle, Belmont, Wayland, Wellesley and Lexington.
That does not establish that Brookline’s STEM program is declining. Rankings fluctuate, and the underlying measures capture only certain parts of the academic experience.
But for a school that has historically performed very well in STEM, it is a metric worth following.
Where the leveling debate fits in
The rankings arrive while Brookline has been reconsidering how students are grouped academically, particularly in ninth grade.
The discussion is often reduced to the word “deleveling,” but Brookline’s approach has varied by department.
Social studies introduced the heterogeneous WHISP ninth-grade course in 2019. English later began experimenting with unleveled ninth-grade instruction. Math has also tested heterogeneous approaches, while recognizing the particular challenge of teaching a sequential subject to students arriving with significantly different preparation.
The argument for change is largely about access.
Brookline educators have raised concerns that eighth-grade recommendations can place students on academic trajectories that become difficult to change later. Enrollment in advanced courses has also shown significant demographic differences.
For example, data cited during Brookline’s discussion of ninth-grade math showed that among Black eighth graders recommended for the incoming Class of 2027, 6% were recommended for Advanced Geometry, 30% for Honors and 64% for College Preparatory Geometry.
Supporters of heterogeneous classrooms argue that early placement should not unnecessarily restrict future academic opportunity.
The countervailing question is whether students who arrive ready for substantially faster or more advanced work can continue to receive sufficient challenge within the same classroom.
Brookline’s own educators have acknowledged that this is particularly complicated in math, science and world languages, where later coursework builds directly on earlier mastery.
The important point is that academic access and academic rigor do not have to be opposing objectives.
A successful model should ideally produce both: more students gaining access to advanced work, while maintaining meaningful challenge for students already prepared for it.
Can this year’s rankings tell us whether leveling changes are working?
Not yet.
It would be easy to connect Brookline’s changing STEM position to its experiments with leveling, but the available evidence does not support that conclusion.
The changes were introduced at different times in different departments, while rankings rely substantially on student data generated before publication.
More importantly, Brookline’s overall ranking has moved sharply up during the same period.
The fair conclusion is therefore narrower:
Brookline is changing aspects of how academic opportunity is structured while its overall statewide ranking is improving, and its STEM position remains an important metric to watch.
Several more years of data should provide a much better basis for judging the results.
A new leadership chapter
Brookline is also entering this period with substantial changes in educational leadership.
Bella Wong became Superintendent of the Public Schools of Brookline in 2025. She is a Brookline native, attended the John D. Runkle School and Brookline High, and brings nearly three decades of experience as an educator and superintendent. The School Committee has since appointed her superintendent through June 2030.
The current rankings largely reflect student performance from before Wong’s tenure, so it would be premature to attribute the improvement to her leadership.
But her background is notable. Wong previously led both Wellesley and Lincoln-Sudbury — districts with long-established academic reputations. Lincoln-Sudbury happens to be Massachusetts’ highest-ranked school in this year’s national STEM top 50, at No. 32.
Brookline also elected two new School Committee members in 2026, alongside a returning incumbent.
That makes the current ranking less a verdict on the new leadership team than a useful baseline.
Over the next several years, Brookline will have an opportunity to measure whether changes in curriculum and academic structure are producing broader access to advanced coursework without sacrificing strong outcomes at the upper end.
Why this matters to Brookline real estate
For many Brookline homebuyers, schools are part of a much larger value equation.
Families considering Brookline may also be looking at Newton, Belmont, Lexington, Wellesley, Needham, Weston or Dover-Sherborn.
Those communities compete on housing, commute, land, amenities, lifestyle — and education.
Brookline’s particular advantage has long been the combination of proximity to Boston, walkability and transit in many neighborhoods, an urban-suburban lifestyle, and access to a highly regarded public-school system.
That reputation matters.
It would be an overstatement to suggest that moving from No. 28 to No. 19 suddenly changes Brookline home values. Annual rankings simply are not that powerful.
But longer-term confidence in the school system can influence where families choose to live, particularly when they are comparing communities with otherwise strong alternatives.
For real estate, the durable reputation matters much more than the annual number.
What to watch next
Brookline High’s 2026 ranking is clearly encouraging.
BHS has reversed several years of falling statewide rankings and returned to Massachusetts’ top 20.
The more important questions will unfold over the next several years:
Will broader groups of students reach Honors, Advanced and AP-level work?
Will students already prepared for accelerated coursework continue to have meaningful opportunities to move ahead?
Will Brookline regain ground in national STEM measures?
And under a new superintendent and a refreshed School Committee, can the district sustain the combination of excellence and opportunity that has long made its schools central to Brookline’s appeal?
Those questions matter far more than whether BHS ranks No. 19, No. 24 or No. 15 in any particular year.
For families considering Brookline — and for the long-term strength of the Brookline real-estate market — the real measure is whether the school system continues to earn its reputation as one of the community’s greatest assets.
About Elad Bushari
Elad Bushari is a Brookline, Massachusetts real estate advisor, Executive Vice President at Compass, and founder of The Bushari Team. With more than 22 years of experience and over $1 billion in career sales, Elad specializes in Brookline real estate, luxury homes, condominiums, multi-family properties, development sales, and strategic representation.
Based in Brookline, Elad advises buyers, sellers, landlords, tenants, and developers across Coolidge Corner, Washington Square, Chestnut Hill, Fisher Hill, Brookline Village, Longwood, and Greater Boston. His work combines hyperlocal market knowledge, data-driven pricing strategy, high-end marketing, negotiation experience, and deep familiarity with Brookline’s housing stock, condo buildings, schools, zoning, and neighborhood dynamics.
Elad writes about Brookline real estate market trends, housing policy, condo due diligence, private listing strategy, older-home risk, luxury property marketing, and local buyer and seller strategy on Bushari.com.
Brookline should use the 26 Pleasant Street rezoning to secure public benefits for the entire town—not private concessions for the loudest abutters. That means more housing, safer crossings, mature-tree protection and an enforceable contribution of roughly $700,000 to $800,000.
Sold
