Summary:
ZIP code 42001 has two middle schools, [Paducah Middle School](https://www.schooldigger.com/go/KY/schools/0465001144/school.aspx) and [Reidland Middle School](https://www.schooldigger.com/go/KY/schools/0396001013/school.aspx), and both serve grades 6–8. Their 2024–2025 and 2025–2026 test results offer a like-for-like view of the area’s schools. The clearest overall finding is that Reidland leads in most of the latest results, with the widest gaps in eighth-grade writing and editing and mechanics.
Reidland Middle School is ahead in eight of the ten 2025–2026 grade-and-subject results, and its results are above the state in nine; its sixth-grade reading score is the exception, 4 points below the state. The biggest school-to-school differences are in eighth-grade writing, where Reidland scored 55% and Paducah Middle School 37%, and editing and mechanics, 57% versus 39%—18 points in each subject. Paducah has two narrow leads: sixth-grade reading, 52% to Reidland’s 50%, and seventh-grade science, 31% to 30%. The schools are much closer in science averages, just 1 point apart, than in writing or editing and mechanics.
Across the two schools, results improved in most subjects from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026: average math and reading rose about 2 points, and science rose 7, while writing fell 4 points. SchoolDigger’s latest percentiles also rose year over year: Paducah reached the 42nd percentile, up from the 33rd, and Reidland reached the 67th, up from the 55th; Reidland remained below its 81st-percentile result in 2023–2024. As context, in 2024–2025 the free/reduced lunch eligible share was 68% at Reidland and 61% at Paducah, while student-teacher ratios were close at 14.8 and 15.2, respectively. These are descriptive differences, not explanations for test results.
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