Best Public Schools in Addison, MI

The city of Addison, Michigan, is served by the three schools of the Addison Community Schools district, which together educate roughly 682 students across grades PK-12 in a small, rural community setting.

For parents, the most striking story is the dramatic difference in academic trajectories between the schools. Addison Elementary School starts strong—3rd graders beat the state average in math—but then experiences a severe "fade-out" by 5th grade, where math proficiency collapses to just 7.27% (compared to the 32.2% state average). This is the single most alarming data point in the district. In contrast, Addison High School showed it could achieve well above state averages in the 2024-2025 school year, particularly in Science (39.1% vs. 34.9%) and Social Studies (58.7% vs. 42.1%), but its state ranking plummeted from the 70th to the 43rd percentile the following year, with SAT reading proficiency dropping from 63% to 46.7%. Addison Middle School is the most consistent performer in terms of attendance, with the lowest chronic absenteeism rate in the district (24.5%, below the state's 27.9%), even though it faces the highest economic disadvantage (51.83% free/reduced lunch) and largest class sizes (21.8 student-teacher ratio).

Across all three schools, math is a systemic weakness, with proficiency rates universally below state averages from 5th grade through 11th grade SAT math (15.6%). Chronic absenteeism is a major red flag at the high school, where 38.1% of students are chronically absent—a rate that correlates with its low graduation rate (82.9%) and high dropout rate (8.5%). Despite spending over $14,000 per student at every school, results are largely middling, suggesting the issue is not funding but instructional effectiveness. The elementary school is the only one with absenteeism below the state average, while the middle school's strong attendance may be its greatest asset. Parents should view the high school's past success as proof of potential, but the current downward trend and the elementary school's upper-grade collapse demand immediate attention.