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Best Middle Schools In Houston


The 2020 best Houston middle schools lists on this page identify the traditional open enrollment, selective enrollment and charter middle schools that scored highest on the 2019 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) evaluations administered statewide by the Texas Education Agency.

To make the evaluation of each schools’s academic performance more precise and meaningful, an academic performance index that indicates the relative combined STAAR score of each Texas middle and junior high school has been constructed. The way it works is that a school with an academic performance index level at 82.6 would have combined STAAR scores that are 17.4 percent lower than the scores of the state’s top performing middle school. Each school also has been assigned an academic performance score based on its rank in the overall academic performance index. Schools that rank among top 10 percent of schools included this study received an academic performance score of 10, schools in the next lower ninth decile received a score of 9, and so on. Accountability ratings awarded by the TEA in were not considered in this ranking analysis since in addition to STAAR scores these ratings take into account factors that generally have no meaningful linkage to the academic performance of individual students, such as changes in student performance at the school on the STAAR evaluations from one year to the next. Such factors may be meaningful to administrators and teachers, but not to most parents or students. Also not considered in this study are frequently, sometimes purposefully, misleading subjective factors such as opinions of self-selected contributors of anonymous parent and student reviews and "expert insights" regarding teacher quality.

Most of the schools listed in the complete Houston public middle schools rankings are open enrollment schools and a relatively few are magnet and charter schools. Clicking on these 2020 top Houston open enrollment middle schools, 2020 top Houston selective enrollment middle schools and 2020 top Houston charter middle schools jump links displays those ranking views. The high schools identified in these lists also are among the top ranked middle schools in the state of Texas.

Open enrollment middle schools

Of the 304 Houston public middle and junior high schools included in this analysis, 1,423 are traditional open enrollment schools which are operated by local independent schools districts and where the only requirement for admittance is student residency in the school's attendance area. The Houston open enrollment middle schools that rank highest in academic performance and the cities/towns they serve are shown below.

The data presented in this table can be sorted by clicking on the table headings. You also can limit the data display to a single school or school district by typing the name of a school or school district in the Search box. Additional performance and other information for middle schools located in the communities profiled on this website can be accessed by clicking on the name of the school.


2020 top Houston open enrollment middle schools

rankcampusdistrictstudentsacademic
performance
index
accountability
rating
STAAR
scaled
score
attended by students living in
1Fort Settlement Middle SchoolFort Bend ISD1,53885.9A96Sugar Land
2Beckendorff Junior High SchoolKaty ISD1,69983.7A95Katy
3Smith Middle SchoolCypress-Fairbanks ISD1,55582.4A95Cypress
4Seven Lakes Junior High SchoolKaty ISD2,03282.0A95Katy
5Tays Junior High SchoolKaty ISD1,71880.3A95Katy
6McCullough Junior High SchoolConroe ISD2,14180.2A95Conroe, Spring, The Woodlands
7Lanier Middle SchoolHouston ISD1,46478.9A94Houston
8Sartartia Middle SchoolFort Bend ISD1,32678.7A94Richmond, Sugar Land
9Austin Middle SchoolGalveston ISD56478.4A94Galveston
10Beck Junior High SchoolKaty ISD1,00176.8A94Katy
11Creekside Park Junior High SchoolTomball ISD76676.3A94Spring, The Woodlands, Tomball
12McMeans Junior High SchoolKaty ISD1,13676.0A94Houston, Katy
13Memorial Middle SchoolSpring Branch ISD1,33676.0A94Bunker Hill, Houston
14Woodcreek Junior High SchoolKaty ISD1,58775.9A94Katy
15Miller Junior High SchoolPearland ISD89575.6A94Manvel, Pearland
16Spillane Middle SchoolCypress-Fairbanks ISD1,53974.1A94Cypress, Houston
17League City Intermediate SchoolClear Creek ISD1,06673.3A93League City
18Pin Oak Middle SchoolHouston ISD1,21372.0A93Bellaire, Houston
19Cinco Ranch Junior High SchoolKaty ISD1,27271.6A93Katy
20Riverwood Middle SchoolHumble ISD1,06670.9A93Houston, Humble, Kingwood
21Devers Junior High SchoolDevers ISD5070.5A93Devers
22Hamilton Middle SchoolCypress-Fairbanks ISD1,49070.3A93Cypress, Houston, Willow Park
23Willow Wood Junior High SchoolTomball ISD1,35369.7A93Cypress, Tomball
24Salyards Middle SchoolCypress-Fairbanks ISD1,59269.4A93Cypress
25Reading Junior High SchoolLamar CISD2,02667.8A92Richmond, Rosenberg, Sugar Land


Selective enrollment middle schools

In addition to their open enrollment schools, a number of Texas school districts also operate selective enrollment schools. Selective enrollment schools provide career-oriented or specialized curriculum in addition to academic subjects, and admittance typically is based on students' previous academic performance and interests demonstrated in student interviews, auditions, essays, and other similar faculty assessments. As would be expected, since admission to selective enrollment schools generally is highly selective and limited, the average standardized test results of the selective enrollment schools generally are much higher than results attained by the open enrollment schools that their students otherwise would attend.

2020 top Houston selective enrollment middle schools

rankcampusdistrictstudentsacademic
performance
index
accountability
rating
STAAR
scaled
score
1Spring Branch Academic InstituteSpring Branch ISD11195.6A98
2Mandarin Immersion Magnet SchoolHouston ISD74880.5A95
3Project Chrysalis Middle SchoolHouston ISD27973.3A93


Charter middle schools

Generally speaking, any student can apply for admission to a Texas charter school, though the school's charter can specify certain restrictions. A typical example of this would be that a student must reside in a specific town or city in order to apply for admission. In most cases, the school's admissions policy also will describe its lottery process. A charter school must use a lottery process when the number of applications to the school exceeds the number of available spaces.

2020 top Houston charter middle schools

rankcampusdistrictstudentsacademic
performance
index
accountability
rating
STAAR
scaled
score
1Cornerstone AcademySpring Branch ISD37776.8A94
2Houston Gateway Academy - EliteHouston Gateway Academy80770.1A93
3Energized for STEM Academy Southwest Middle SchoolHouston ISD21869.1A93


Source: Texas Education Agency

Similar Houston area elementary schools and high schools student performance ranked lists are available on these best Houston public elementary schools and best Houston public high schools pages. Rankings for school districts are shown on this best Houston school districts page.

 




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