Westside Middle School

Westside Middle School is a public charter middle school in Memphis, Tennessee, serving 328 students in grades 6-8. The school is part of the Achievement School District, which is ranked last among all districts in Tennessee and has a 0-star rating from SchoolDigger.

Westside Middle School faces significant academic challenges, with consistently low proficiency rates on TNReady assessments that are far below the state and district averages across all subjects and grade levels. For example, in the 2023-2024 school year, the school's proficiency rates were just 8% in mathematics and 6.2% in English language arts, compared to 39.7% and 37.6% statewide, respectively. The school's performance has been consistently low, with proficiency rates ranging from 5-9% in recent years. Westside Middle School's performance for specific student subgroups, such as female students, male students, African American students, and low socioeconomic status students, is also among the lowest in the state.

While the nearby schools, such as Humes Preparatory Academy Middle School, Woodstock Middle School, and Bellevue Middle, also have low academic performance, they tend to perform better than Westside Middle School. Additionally, the significant increase in spending per student at Westside Middle School, from $7,639 in 2018-2019 to $15,787 in 2020-2021, has not resulted in improved academic outcomes, suggesting that simply increasing funding may not be the sole solution to improving the school's performance.