Summary:
Zip code 33150 in Miami, Florida, is home to two high schools—Miami Northwestern Senior High and Dr. Marvin Dunn Academy For Community Education—serving grades 9-12 within the Miami-Dade school district, a 4-star rated district ranked 20th in Florida.
Miami Northwestern Senior High is a large comprehensive school with 1,479 students and a standout 96.4% graduation rate, well above the district (93.1%) and state (92.2%) averages. However, it faces significant challenges: chronic absenteeism is 55.9% (nearly double the state average of 31.4%), and proficiency in Algebra 1 (43%) and 10th-grade ELA (54%) lags behind district averages. In contrast, Dr. Marvin Dunn Academy For Community Education is a small alternative school with only 77 students, spending $26,513 per student—more than double Northwestern's $12,503—yet its graduation rate is just 44.4% and chronic absenteeism reaches 65.5%. Despite these resources, Dunn's test scores are generally lower, though it excels in US History (82% proficient, above the district's 76%).
Both schools share a critical issue: crisis-level chronic absenteeism, which likely drives many other performance gaps. Northwestern shows strength in Biology (80% proficient) and US History (75%), while Dunn's small size causes extreme year-to-year volatility in metrics like Geometry proficiency (dropping from 92% to 27% in one year). For parents, the key takeaway is that Miami Northwestern offers a strong path to graduation but struggles with core academic mastery, while Dr. Marvin Dunn Academy provides intensive support for a small, at-risk population but shows inconsistent results. Addressing absenteeism would likely benefit both schools significantly.
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