Madison (james) Elementary, Anaheim CA

Original Research by School Decision on Madison (james) Elementary

Madison Elementary is a neighborhood school in Anaheim serving kindergarten through sixth grade. It sits within Anaheim Elementary School District, which has undertaken a deliberate, multi-year shift to science-of-reading instruction that has produced consecutive years of gains in English language arts across the district. That literacy work, implemented through adoption of the Benchmark Advance/Adelante curriculum and sustained teacher training in the LETRS and Aspire frameworks, is the kind of instructional change that shapes long-term outcomes for a school and its students.

The school serves a student body that is predominantly Hispanic and heavily economically disadvantaged. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The enrollment, roughly medium-sized for an elementary school serving this grade span, sits in a neighborhood west of central Anaheim. The community itself is diverse in residential texture; West Anaheim, where the school is located, is characterized publicly as a working-class, heavily Latino neighborhood with affordable housing, while other parts of Anaheim range from affluent hillside developments to downtown historic districts with strong civic life anchored by libraries, parks, and the ARTIC transit hub.

State assessment results from 2024-25 show performance well below the midpoint for schools in Orange County. In English language arts across tested grades, roughly three out of ten students demonstrated proficiency. In mathematics, the pattern is similar, with between roughly one-quarter and just under half of students proficient, depending on grade. A science test was administered to fifth grade, where just over one-quarter of students met proficiency. These results reflect the reality that the school faces meaningful academic headwinds. At the same time, the district's commitment to literacy instruction suggests that the structural work to move those numbers is underway and measurable in other schools in the district already.

The Anaheim Elementary district itself embraces a dual-language immersion model districtwide, branded as e²STEAM-D, which integrates bilingual literacy development in Spanish and English from kindergarten through sixth grade alongside science, technology, engineering, and arts. Some schools in the district operate dedicated dual-language academies; whether Madison does so is not specified in the available data. For families in a bilingual household or those valuing biliteracy, this is a deliberate program commitment that runs through the whole district.

Anaheim as a place sits on an active growth trajectory. The Platinum Triangle around Honda Center and the ARTIC intermodal transit hub is undergoing major mixed-use development (OCVibe), expected to bring substantial new housing and community amenities by 2027 or 2028. Downtown Anaheim and the adjacent Colony Historic District are the most walkable and pedestrian-oriented parts of the city, with libraries, parks, and civic anchors. Housing values in the zip code are notably high relative to national benchmarks, though affording them requires a median household income well above the national median or willingness to rent, where local rents have modestly declined year-over-year despite broader pressure.

A parent evaluating Madison should understand its context clearly: it is a school serving a predominantly working-class, non-English-dominant community, with recent test results that place it in the lower range among the county's schools. That said, it is embedded in a district actively implementing evidence-based literacy instruction with demonstrated year-over-year gains elsewhere, and the school offers access to bilingual education as a structural feature. The academic lift required here is substantial, but the district's sustained instructional commitment is worth weighing alongside the immediate test-score picture. A parent might want to discuss directly with the school how the literacy initiative is playing out at Madison and what support structures are in place for students working toward proficiency.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 346%

School 46% · District 30% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 26% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 535%

School 35% · District 18% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 629%

School 29% · District 19% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 337%

School 37% · District 28% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 30% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 547%

School 47% · District 31% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 638%

School 38% · District 32% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Science

Grade 526%

School 26% · District 20% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

This schoolAnaheim Elementary, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income36%Higher-income85%48 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income32%Higher-income46%14 pp gap