Dr. Etheldra Davis Fairview Elementary

Dr. Etheldra Davis Fairview Elementary is a PK–6 neighborhood school in central Anchorage, AK, serving 337 students in the Anchorage School District—a district ranked in the middle of Alaska districts, though the school itself has spent the past decade at or near the very bottom of statewide elementary rankings.

The school’s test scores are far below district and state averages: in 2025–26, 12.93% of students were proficient in English language arts (district: 35.97%) and 16.33% in math (district: 35.66%). That puts the school at the 5th percentile in Alaska. But it is not an isolated case. Nearby high-poverty schools such as William Tyson Elementary, Airport Heights Elementary, North Star Elementary, and Lake Otis Elementary have similarly low scores, and the school actually posts the strongest grade 5 science result in that cluster (21.57%). Meanwhile, within about two miles, Chugach Optional Elementary and Rogers Park Elementary—both reporting far lower poverty rates—produce some of Alaska’s best elementary results, with math proficiency of 69.57% and 63.98%, respectively. The school effectively serves an almost entirely low-income student body, and the achievement gap between these neighboring schools tracks closely with poverty.

Encouragingly, the school is beginning to climb. Math proficiency has more than doubled since 2022–23, from 7.18% to 16.33%, and reading has risen from 9.13% to 12.93%; grade 5 science reached 21.57%, up from 10.94% in 2023–24. Its statewide rank of 157th of 166 remains in the bottom 5%, but that is its best relative position since 2014–15. Spending does not explain the divide: per-student spending at the school is $17,235, more than at high-performing neighbors like Chugach Optional Elementary ($12,193) and Rogers Park Elementary ($14,438), with comparable class sizes. The larger point for parents is about equity: this part of Anchorage has both some of Alaska’s top elementary schools and a cluster of high-need, low-scoring schools, and the gap tracks concentrated poverty and school-attendance options more than funding. The school’s recent progress—especially in math—shows improvement is possible in a high-need setting, but the remaining gap is large.