Summary:
Zip code 85033 has two middle schools, both serving grades 6–8 in Cartwright Elementary District: Estrella Middle School College and Career Prep enrolls 650 students, and Desert Sands Academy of Mass Communication & Journalism enrolls 510. Both schools’ reported proficiency rates are well below Arizona’s in every subject and grade shown. Across the schools, average proficiency is 19% in all-grade ELA versus 41% statewide, 9% in math versus 33%, and 14% in grade-8 science versus 30%. The most important takeaway is that both schools trail state proficiency rates by wide margins, despite small differences between them.
Estrella is the local leader on most measures, but its advantage is modest: it leads Desert Sands by 2 points in all-grade ELA (20% versus 18%) and math (10% versus 8%), and by 5 points in grade-8 science (16% versus 11%). It also leads in grade-7 ELA by 3 points and in grade-7 and grade-8 math by 1 and 2 points. Desert Sands’ one edge is grade-8 ELA, at 17% versus Estrella’s 16%. SchoolDigger’s latest statewide rankings place both near the bottom: Estrella ranks 509th of 536 schools, in the 5th percentile, and Desert Sands ranks 519th, in the 3rd percentile. So Estrella stands out locally, while Desert Sands is slightly lower overall; neither is close to the state rates.
SchoolDigger’s rank percentiles show some recent relative improvement, especially for Desert Sands: Estrella moved from the 6th percentile in 2023–24 to the 5th in 2025–26, while Desert Sands rose from the 0th to the 3rd; both remain in the bottom 5%. Desert Sands has a lower student-teacher ratio (18.5 versus 20.3) and higher reported spending per student in 2021–22 ($14,529 versus $11,768), yet Estrella leads on most test measures; these differences do not show what caused the results. Because proficiency data cover only one year, the ranking changes do not establish whether achievement is rising or falling.
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