Carroll Middle

Carroll Middle is a public school in Raleigh, NC, serving grades 6–8 with about 898 students as part of Wake County Schools, a high-performing district rated in the 76th percentile statewide. The school itself, however, sits in the middle-low range for North Carolina: it ranks 441st out of 778 middle schools this year, placing it in the 43rd percentile with 2 stars. That is a modest improvement from 2024–2025, when it ranked 505th (35th percentile), but Carroll has remained in roughly the 34th–45th percentile band for the past decade.

The clearest academic red flag is math. Only 39.1% of Carroll's 8th graders score proficient in math, versus 64.4% across Wake County, with double-digit gaps in reading at nearly every grade level. Context matters: about 61% of Carroll's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and 24.8% are chronically absent. Nearby high performers look quite different. Leesville Road Middle — ranked 72nd in the state — has a poverty rate roughly half of Carroll's and 87.9% proficiency in 8th-grade math. Moore Square Middle, Martin Middle, and Carnage Middle are all top-120 schools serving student populations with about 29–35% poverty.

There are genuine strengths to note. Carroll's 8th-grade science proficiency reached 70% this year — above the state average of 68.6% — and English Learner students jumped from the 9th to the 53rd percentile over two school years, a remarkable gain. Still, low-income students rank in the 25th percentile and special education students fell from the 40th to 13th percentile, signaling real equity challenges. With a student-teacher ratio of 14.8 to 1 and per-pupil spending comparable to higher-performing peers, class size and funding are not the whole story. The recent uptick is encouraging, but sustained improvement across all student groups will be key for Carroll to close the gap with the strong schools around it.