Best Middle Schools in Zip Code 75217

In zip code 75217, three middle schools serve grades 6-8 (with one also including grades 4-5) as part of the Dallas Independent School District (Isd), an area where all schools face high poverty rates but show dramatically different academic outcomes.

The standout school is School For The Talented & Gifted In Pleasant Grove, a magnet school ranked in the top 1% of Texas middle schools (9th out of 2,335) with a 5-star rating. It achieves near-universal proficiency on STAAR tests, with 97.47% of 8th graders proficient in Reading and 88.31% in Math, far exceeding the other two schools. In contrast, E B Comstock Middle and Young Men's Leadership Academy At Fred F Florence rank in the bottom 10% of the state (5th and 10th percentiles) with 0-star ratings. At these schools, less than 36% of 8th graders are proficient in Reading and less than 28% in Math, with Social Studies proficiency as low as 6.74% at E B Comstock. Interestingly, the magnet school achieves these results with the lowest per-student spending ($10,702) and highest student-teacher ratio (16:1), while the other two schools spend more ($11,809-$12,324) with smaller class sizes but still struggle.

A surprising finding is that both lower-performing schools excel in Algebra I, with proficiency rates of 72.34% at E B Comstock and 83.05% at Young Men's Leadership Academy—well above the district average of 59.35% and state average of 54.03%. However, this strength is limited to advanced math students, as most students fail to reach that level. All three schools serve populations with over 92% free/reduced lunch eligibility, demonstrating that while poverty is a challenge, the magnet school proves that students from low-income backgrounds can achieve at the highest levels with the right structure and support.