schoolsbycounty
3D county explorer

See the national school landscape as a county-by-county model.

Rotate, zoom, and drill from the national view into states and counties. Each tower is built from NCES school score, graduation, and finance data.

Counties

3,120

50 state and district groupings

Avg score

50

National county school score

Avg grad rate

88.2%

$7,956 avg spend

Loading 3D county explorer

Preparing county score, graduation, and finance layers from NCES data.

Source: NCES public school and school-finance records. The explorer is a comparison interface for county-level signals and does not identify attendance-zone boundaries.

What the explorer is good for

The 3D view is designed for pattern recognition. It helps you see clusters, outliers, and state-level variation before you compare specific county pages.

Drill from national to local

Click a county tower once to focus its state, then click again to inspect that county and open the full county profile.

Switch between metrics

Compare the school score, graduation rate, and per-pupil spending layers without losing your current state or county view.

Treat it as a screening tool

Use the model to shortlist counties, then confirm district boundaries, programs, and enrollment rules with local sources.

Highest school-score counties in the model

These counties currently have the highest values on the school-score layer. Open a county profile to see the underlying graduation, spending, district, and school records.

  1. 100

  2. 100

  3. 99

  4. 98

  5. 97

  6. 97

Explorer FAQ

What does the 3D explorer show?

Each tower represents a county. The active metric controls height and color, so you can scan school score, graduation rate, or per-pupil spending patterns before opening the full county page.

Can I use this for school enrollment decisions?

Use it as a regional comparison tool, not as an enrollment authority. School assignment rules and attendance zones are set locally and should be verified with the relevant district.

Why does the explorer use county data instead of school zones?

County-level data is available consistently across national NCES releases. Attendance-zone data is local, unevenly published, and can change during the school year.