Best Public Schools in Florence, AZ

Florence, Arizona, has six schools serving grades from PK–8 through K–12, including elementary, high, and alternative schools; enrollment ranges from 163 at Mountain Vista Academy to 1,079 at American Leadership Academy Anthem South K-12. Among the five schools with reported all-grades results, the equal-weight averages are 31% in ELA versus 41% statewide and 24% in math versus 33% statewide. Results vary widely, from 22–47% in ELA and 13–43% in math. The key takeaway is that local averages fall below state results, but a citywide average hides substantial differences between schools.

Anthem South leads reported all-grades ELA at 47%, 6 percentage points above the state, and matches the state in math at 33%; Anthem Elementary School leads math at 43%, 10 points above state. At the other end, Florence High School has the lowest reported all-grades ELA result, 22%, while Florence Elementary School has the lowest math result, 13%—19 and 20 points below state, respectively. Grade-level results also show sharp contrasts: third-grade math is 55% at Anthem South and 16% at Florence Elementary, against 38% statewide. Florence High stands out in a different way: its 93% graduation rate is above the state’s 80%, despite its lower test results.

SchoolDigger’s available school rank histories are mixed: Florence Elementary fell 20 percentile points from 2023–24 to 2025–26, while Magma Ranch Elementary School gained 13 points and Florence High gained 4. SchoolDigger ranks American Leadership Academy Inc. 100th of 267 districts, at the 63rd percentile with 3 stars, compared with Florence Unified School District at 241st, the 10th percentile with 1 star. School characteristics do not point to a simple explanation for score differences: Florence Elementary and Anthem Elementary have similar enrollments, yet Anthem is 12 points higher in ELA and 30 points higher in math, while their student-teacher ratios are 16.2 and 18.7. Free/reduced-lunch figures are unavailable, and Mountain Vista’s test results are suppressed, so those measures cannot complete the comparisons.