Carter J H

Carter J H is a 7th and 8th-grade middle school in the Arlington Independent School District (Isd) serving 735 students in a high-poverty area of Arlington, TX, where over 92% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

Carter J H has consistently ranked in the bottom 10-11% of Texas middle schools over the past five years, with its state percentile rank dropping from the 22nd percentile in 2018-2019 to the 9th percentile in 2025-2026. This places it among the lowest-performing schools in its district and surrounding area. For comparison, nearby Young J H ranks in the 68th percentile, and Arlington Classics Academy - Middle ranks in the 88th percentile. The school's academic performance is significantly below both district and state averages in nearly every subject and grade level. However, there is a notable exception: in the 2025-2026 school year, 66.67% of Carter J H students taking the Algebra I End-of-Course exam were proficient, which is higher than the district (38.91%) and state (54.03%) averages. This success in advanced math stands in stark contrast to the school's 7th and 8th-grade math proficiency rates of 8.03% and 28.27%, respectively.

Despite severe academic struggles, Carter J H has a lower dropout rate (1.6%) than the district average (2.1%), which is a positive sign that the school is relatively successful at keeping students enrolled. This is in contrast to Nichols J H, which has a similar poverty level but a much higher dropout rate of 5.3%. The school's spending per student ($9,039-$10,992) is generally in line with nearby peers, and its student-teacher ratio (13.4:1) is also comparable. The data suggests that Carter J H's primary challenge is overcoming the systemic effects of poverty, a challenge that its higher-performing nearby peers do not face to the same degree.