Want to see where Maryland's best-performing students hang out? Want to see how your neighborhood schools stack up? We have ranked all the elementary and middle schools in the state based on the number of students who performed at Advanced levels in the Maryland School Assessment. Go to baltimoresun.com/msa and you can look up a series of reports on line. You will be able to search for schools in the databases or click on to the PDF files that give you listings already sorted.

   Some of the reports were also printed in yesterday's paper with a story that looks at what the highest performing schools in the state have in common: a stable workforce of well trained teachers who feel they have a say in finding new strategies to improve the school, a variety of after school activities and programs for gifted students.

 We spend a lot of time focusing on whether schools have enough students passing the MSAs, but in fact, many schools are doing so well that they are now looking at how to get more students score at the advanced levels.

The schools in this catagory are those that parents seek out when they are deciding which house to buy.