Burdick Elementary

Burdick Elementary is a PK–8 neighborhood school at 4348 S Griffin Ave on Milwaukee's south side, serving 527 students in the Milwaukee School District. By state ranking it sits at 871st of 1,039 Wisconsin schools (16th percentile, 1 star) in 2025-2026, and it has earned that same 1-star rating every year on record. Its student body is 58.1% free/reduced lunch, with $18,622 in per-pupil spending and a 21.2:1 student-teacher ratio — the third-highest among eleven nearby schools.

Burdick consistently outperforms its own district, even though that district ranks 418th of 432 Wisconsin districts. Average ELA proficiency is 37.3% versus 25.9% district-wide, and math is 34.7% versus 20.7% — above district in all six tested ELA grades and five of six math grades. Chronic absenteeism is roughly half the district's (23.5% vs. 46.2%), though it is above the state's 17.3% and rose 5.5 points in 2024-25 after three years of improvement. Locally, Whittier Elementary — half a mile away with nearly identical poverty (54.1%) — posts a 74th percentile, 4-star rating with 9.7% absenteeism, while Bay View Montessori School (3.1%) and Fernwood Montessori (8.9%) have far lower absenteeism.

Results split sharply by grade. Eighth graders beat the state average in science (58.5% vs. 51.9%) and came within about a point in social studies (63.1% vs. 64.6%), while fourth grade lags badly — ELA 21.2% and math 18.2%, both below the district. Students learning English are the standout group at the 58th percentile with 3 stars, the only subgroup above the state midpoint (one year of data, so a promising signal rather than an established trend); low-income students rank at the 9th percentile with 0 stars, and girls at the 11th. Spending rose roughly 59% in five years while the school's percentile drifted from the 25th to the 16th.