Summary:
Cambridge is home to four middle schools — Cambridge Street Upper School, Darby Vassall Upper School, Rindge Avenue Upper School, and Putnam Avenue Upper School — all serving grades 6–8 and all part of the Cambridge district, which ranks 71st of 351 Massachusetts districts at the 80th percentile with 4 stars. Together they enroll 1,174 students, with each school between 283 and 301 students. A headline result for families: in 2025–2026, all four schools scored above the state average in every reported subject — ELA, Math, Science, and Civics.
Rindge Avenue is the academic standout, ranking 54th of 478 schools (89th percentile) and leading all four in ELA (72.24%), Math (69.85%), and Civics (55.81%), with the strongest overall composite. Putnam Avenue leads in Science (55.17%) and ranks 87th. Cambridge Street showed the biggest year-over-year gains, with Science and Civics each rising about 20 points and its rank climbing from 203rd to 139th. Darby Vassall is the most balanced in ELA and Math (53.14% and 53.11%) and has the lowest student-teacher ratio at 7.0. Only Rindge is above the district average in all four subjects; Darby and Cambridge Street sit below district in each subject but remain above state.
Two patterns matter for parents. First, 7th-grade Math is a recurring weak spot: Cambridge Street’s 7th graders scored 34.12%, below the state’s 7th-grade average of 37.48%, and Putnam’s 7th-grade Math (42.22%) trails its own 6th- and 8th-grade results. Second, Science and Civics swing more year to year than ELA. Rindge spends the least per student ($32,434, from 2020–2021) with the highest student-teacher ratio (9.4) yet posts the best outcomes, though that older spending data cannot establish cause. Free/reduced-price lunch data is blank for all four schools, so socioeconomic context cannot be assessed.
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