Best Middle Schools in Macon, MS

Macon, Mississippi is served by a single middle school, B F Liddell Middle, part of the Noxubee County School District. The school serves grades 6 through 8 and enrolls 305 students, with a favorable student-teacher ratio of 13.7:1. Every student at the school qualifies for free or reduced lunch, reflecting a very high-poverty community that faces significant educational challenges.

Academically, B F Liddell Middle ranks in the bottom 4% of Mississippi middle schools, and its state percentile has fallen from 13th in 2023–2024 to 4th in 2025–2026. Proficiency rates in core subjects are well below state averages: ELA proficiency ranges from 16% to 19% compared to state averages near 37–41%, while math proficiency ranges from 21% to 26% against state averages of 51–58%. The one striking exception is Algebra I, where 88.9% of students scored proficient in 2025–2026, exceeding the state average of 66% by nearly 23 points. This likely reflects a small, selected group of advanced students rather than the general 8th-grade population, since 8th-grade math proficiency is just 21%.

Chronic absenteeism affects 26.8% of students, higher than the state rate of 23.9%, and directly undermines learning. Since B F Liddell Middle is the only middle school in its district, its scores for grade-level tests are identical to district averages, while the Algebra I average differs because it includes students from other district schools. There are some bright spots: 8th-grade science proficiency jumped from 15.5% to 32.9%, 8th-grade math improved from 10.3% to 21%, and Algebra I improved from 50% to 88.9%. However, these cohort-level gains have not kept pace with improvements across Mississippi, and the school remains among the lowest-performing middle schools in the state.