Summary
Austin Achieve Middle is a charter school in Austin, TX, serving 669 students in grades 5 through 8, with about 90% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, placing it in a high-poverty category. This school, part of the Austin Achieve Public Schools district, has consistently ranked in the bottom 10-20th percentile of Texas middle schools over the past decade, indicating persistent academic challenges that set it apart from higher-performing neighbors like Kealing Middle and Lamar Middle, which rank in the 91st-95th percentile.
A critical weakness is in 8th-grade mathematics, where 0% of students scored proficient on the STAAR exam for the 2025-2026 school year, a trend that has persisted for four consecutive years. In contrast, Kealing Middle had 77% proficiency in the same subject. However, the school shows a notable strength in Algebra I for advanced 8th graders, with 38% scoring proficient in 2025-2026, above the district average of 33.7%. This creates a "tale of two schools" within one building, where resources may be concentrated on a select group of high-achieving students while the general math curriculum fails the majority. The school also spends relatively high amounts per student—$10,979 in 2020-2021—compared to Kealing Middle ($9,762) and Lamar Middle ($9,174), yet academic outcomes are dramatically lower, suggesting issues with resource allocation or instructional effectiveness.
Support for student subgroups is inconsistent, with rankings for African American and Special Education students fluctuating wildly from the 66th and 63rd percentiles in 2024-2025 to the 14th and 23rd percentiles just one year later. On a positive note, the dropout rate has decreased to 0.6% in 2023-2024, lower than the district average of 0.8% and much lower than nearby low-performing schools like Dobie Middle (7.5%) and Webb Middle (3.9%). The school's closest neighbor, Sadler Means Ywla, serves a similar high-poverty population but excels in English I Reading (94.6% proficiency), highlighting different academic niches despite comparable demographics.
Thank you for your feedback!