Cincinnati’s Walnut Hills High School is the best middle school in the state, per U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 rankings.
Part of Cincinnati Public Schools, Walnut Hills serves students grades 7-12 and is included under both the middle school and high school directories by U.S. News, a global education rankings publication. It earned the No. 1 rank among middle schools in Ohio after being ranked No. 6 in the state in the 2025 rankings.
For the past two years, Walnut Hills also claimed the title of best high school in the state, per U.S. News’ ranking for 2025-26.
Joining the CPS schools ranked among the best in the state is the Spencer Center for Gifted and Exceptional Students, ranked the No. 8 best elementary school in Ohio. The Cincinnati school serving kids in grades 3-12 showed major improvement after being ranked No. 27 in Ohio last year.
The third school representing Cincinnati among the top 10 elementary school and middle school rankings is Mariemont Junior High School, ranked No. 5 among best Ohio middle schools.
Across the river, Beechwood High School in Fort Mitchell and Conner Middle School in Hebron were ranked among the best middle schools in Kentucky.
The 2026 rankings list, released on Oct. 28, includes about 47,000 public elementary schools and over 23,000 middle schools scored at the state and district levels using public data from the U.S. Department of Education.
Schools were scored according to the number of students who tested proficient or better on math and reading state assessments. Half of the ranking formula was based on the scores themselves and the other half analyzed state test results in the context of socioeconomic demographics like students representing ethnic minorities and those coming from low-income households.
Here’s a look at the top schools in Ohio and in Northern Kentucky.
To see the complete rankings, visit USNews.com.
U.S. News & World Report: Best elementary schools in Ohio
Here are the top 10 schools in Ohio:
- Miller City Elementary School, Miller City.
- Wells Academy, Steubenville.
- Parkside Elementary School, Solon.
- Pugliese Elementary West, Steubenville.
- Grace L Roxbury Elementary School, Solon.
- Dorothy E Lewis Elementary School, Solon.
- Whitehouse Primary School, Whitehouse.
- Spencer Center for Gifted and Exceptional Students, Cincinnati.
- Chestnut Ridge Elementary School, Berlin.
- Mckinley Stem Academy, Steubenville.
U.S. News & World Report: Best middle schools in Ohio, Northern Kentucky
Here are the top 10 schools in Ohio:
- Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati.
- Chagrin Falls Middle School, Chagrin Falls.
- School of Innovation, Willoughby.
- Russia High School, Russia.
- Mariemont Junior High School, Cincinnati.
- Solon Middle School, Solon.
- Menlo Park Academy, Cleveland.
- Ottoville High School, Ottoville.
- Granville Intermediate School, Granville.
- Versailles Middle School, Versailles.
Here are the top 10 schools in Kentucky:
- Scapa at Bluegrass, Lexington.
- J. Graham Brown School, Louisville.
- Anchorage Independent Public School, Anchorage.
- Pikeville High School, Pikeville.
- Corbin Middle School, Corbin.
- Beechwood High School, Fort Mitchell.
- East Bernstadt Elementary School, East Bernstadt.
- Conner Middle School, Hebron.
- Edythe Jones Hayes Middle School, Lexington.
- North Washington Elementary School, Willisburg.