Summary:
Billerica has two public middle schools — Marshall Middle School with 596 students and Locke Middle with 531 students — both serving grades 5–7 and both part of the Billerica district. Together they enroll 1,127 students, with Marshall about 12% larger. The district ranks 175 of 351 statewide, at the 50th percentile with 3 stars.
Locke Middle has the stronger current test-score profile. In 2025–2026 it beat both the district and the state in all-grade ELA (46.86), Math (45.25), and Science (44.57), averaging 45.56 versus the district's 42.57 and the state's 40.71. Its standout result is 5th-grade Math at 54.86% proficient, the highest grade-level score in this data and well above the district's 46.82 and the state's 39.50. Marshall Middle School nevertheless holds the slightly higher overall rank — 153 of 478, or the 68th percentile, versus Locke's 163 of 478, the 66th percentile; both carry 3 stars. Marshall's bright spots are 7th-grade ELA at 51.55 and 6th-grade Math at 48.44, while its Science score of 38.63 trails both the district and the state.
Both schools declined from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, and Science is the sharpest drop: Marshall fell 10.32 points and Locke 10.80, while the district slipped only 0.46 and the state 0.53. Seventh-grade Math is a weak spot at both. Locke operates with a lower student/teacher ratio (10.8 versus 11.7) and lower per-student spending in the available 2020–2021 figures, though that data is dated and should not be read as causal. Free/reduced lunch figures are unavailable for both schools, so economic disadvantage could not be assessed and should be treated as unknown rather than zero.
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