Madison County

Madison County has 20 schools—11 elementary, five middle and four high schools—serving students from kindergarten through high school. KSA proficiency results are available for 17 schools; Madison Kindergarten Academy has no listed test scores, and the two alternative schools have no reportable school-level results. Group averages suggest elementary reading and writing are stronger relative to state results than elementary math and science, while middle schools average above state results in every subject and both conventional high schools do so in all reported subjects. The most important finding is that results vary sharply by school, grade and subject rather than showing a uniformly strong or weak county.

Boonesborough Elementary stands out among elementary schools: it leads or ties for the lead in six grade-subject comparisons, including fifth-grade writing at 73%, 38 percentage points above the state, and ranks at the 89th percentile in SchoolDigger’s 2025–2026 statewide ranking. Among middle schools, Farristown Middle leads several results, including eighth-grade writing at 77%, while B. Michael Caudill Middle leads eighth-grade social studies and editing; their SchoolDigger rankings are at the 92nd and 91st percentiles. Madison Southern High leads Madison Central High in all six matched subjects, by 8 to 15 points, and ranks at the 96th percentile. At the lower end, Silver Creek Elementary has several of the lowest elementary results and ranks at the 32nd percentile; Foley Middle has the lowest result in seven of ten middle-school comparisons and ranks at the 61st percentile.

SchoolDigger’s rankings show mixed movement: across 17 schools with three-year histories, the average change from 2023–2024 to 2025–2026 was down about 1 percentile point, but Madison Middle rose 20 points while Foley fell 23. Test-score changes are also mixed: Southern’s eleventh-grade writing rose 10 points year over year, while Foley’s seventh-grade math fell 25. School context offers no simple predictor: for 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible students were 39% at Boonesborough and 59% at Silver Creek, while Daniel Boone Elementary reported 66% and fifth-grade writing proficiency of 60%. Student-teacher ratios also do not neatly track results: White Hall Elementary had a 13.2 ratio and 25% fifth-grade writing proficiency, compared with Boonesborough’s 14.5 ratio and 73%.