Summary:
There is one middle school in zip code 22310—Twain Middle in Alexandria, VA—serving grades 7–8 as part of Fairfax County Public Schools, a top-ranked district in Virginia. This school has a unique profile: exceptional performance in advanced math courses, strong 7th-grade reading, and a high level of per-student investment, but it also faces notable challenges in general education math and 8th-grade achievement.
Twain Middle stands out most for its perfect scores in advanced math: 100% proficiency in both 7th-grade Algebra I and 8th-grade Geometry in the most recent school year. However, grade-level math proficiency tells a very different story—just 51.64% of 7th graders and only 36.67% of 8th graders were proficient in Mathematics, with the 8th-grade figure well below the state average of 46.86%. The school’s 7th-grade reading proficiency is a bright spot at 81.25%, outperforming both district and state averages, but 8th-grade reading declined to 76.29%, trailing the district. Science proficiency also dipped to 68.4%, below the district’s 74.22% but above the state’s 64.72%. Overall, Twain’s state ranking slipped from the 63rd percentile to the 57th percentile over the last two years, even as it maintained a 3-star rating.
The school’s resources are strong: per-student spending is $13,239 and the student-teacher ratio is a low 12.1:1, which should support individualized attention. Chronic absenteeism is 14.1%, slightly above the district average of 11.9% but below the state’s 14.8%. Looking at trends, 7th-grade math and reading both improved, but 8th-grade math fell sharply by nearly 12 points, and 8th-grade reading, science, and Algebra I also declined. For parents, the key takeaway is that Twain Middle excels with advanced learners, especially in math, but the wide gap between advanced and grade-level math proficiency—along with the drop in 8th-grade performance—represents the school’s biggest area for improvement.
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