"Forbes Magazine" gave the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area of North Carolina, also known as the Research Triangle, a 100 percent score on its Best Places with the Best Education List in 2006. With a pupil to teacher ratio of less than 15 and a Blue Ribbon school for every 100,000 people, Raleigh has maintained its high grades in education courtesy of a "Parenting Magazine" designation among the top ten best U.S. cities in 2010.
Taking top honors from the "Parenting Magazine" Top Cities of 2010 was Arlington, Virginia. This city invests heavily in its students with $23,238 total expenditures per student. As a result, an impressive 93 percent of students graduate high school in the Arlington area. Great Schools rated PK-5 Arlington Science Focus a 10 out of 10, using a comparison of Standards of Learning, End-of-Grade and End-of-Course test results against other schools in the area.
Austin, Texas, is a quintessential college town, but it also puts a lot of focus on its younger students. The U.S. Department of Education's Blue Ribbon School Program honors those high performing schools across the nation. According to "Parenting Magazine," Austin claims an impressive 0.79 Blue Ribbon schools for every 100,000 people. Austin spends more than $11,000 per student, which helped it earn a top two ranking on "Parenting Magazine's" Best Cities list. In 2006, "Forbes" graded Austin and its sister city San Marcos with an overall 98.30 score, which puts this hip Texas city with a style all its own at the top of its class.
"Parenting Magazine" rated Boston third in its 2010 Best Cities for Education, which is on par with the second-place rating "Forbes" gave "Beantown" just four years prior. Boston was home to the first public school in the nation, and this large city of more than 600,000 has earned more than one "Forbes" honor through the 2000s to praise its school system with high marks in areas such as investment per student and its student to teacher ratio. In 2010, Boston spent more than $20,000 per student, with fewer than 13 students per teacher.