Summary
Marti Elementary in Cleburne, TX, is a PK-4 public school serving 432 students in the Cleburne Independent School District (Isd), located in a community where about 70% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. The school has recently experienced a dramatic turnaround, jumping from the 24th percentile statewide to the 61st percentile in the 2025-2026 school year, a remarkable 37-point leap that sets it apart from nearby schools like Gerard Elementary, which has been consistently high-performing (78th-82nd percentile), and Santa Fe Elementary and Irving Elementary, which have seen declining rankings in the same period.
This surge is driven by standout results in 4th-grade mathematics, where Marti Elementary’s proficiency rate (60.56%) was the highest among all Cleburne ISD elementary schools, even surpassing Gerard Elementary (59.04%). The school has also seen a powerful improvement for male students, who jumped from the 40th to the 71st percentile, earning a 4-star rating, while economically disadvantaged students—who make up the majority of the student body—rose to the 66th percentile, up from the 28th percentile two years prior. This contrasts with schools like Santa Fe Elementary (84.82% economically disadvantaged) and Irving Elementary (80.25% economically disadvantaged), which have lower overall rankings despite higher spending per student.
However, the school’s success is not uniform across all grades: while 4th-grade scores are excellent, 3rd-grade reading (37.5%) and math (46.91%) remain below state averages, suggesting that recent improvements may be more effective for students who have been at the school longer. Marti Elementary achieves these results with a lower per-student spending ($9,999) compared to peers like Santa Fe Elementary ($11,677) and Irving Elementary ($11,485), indicating that its turnaround is driven by instructional strategies rather than higher funding. The key question is whether this "Marti Miracle" can be sustained, as a similar spike in 2021-2022 was followed by a decline, making the school’s ability to maintain this momentum critical for its future.
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