The top reported proficiency rate is 94% in Science. The lowest is 71% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on John a Bishop
John A Bishop is a regular public elementary school serving kindergarten through grade five in Arlington, Massachusetts, a dense residential suburb northwest of Boston. It is one of seven K–5 schools in the Arlington district, and its students feed into the town’s two middle schools and one high school. For a family looking at this school, the core takeaway is strong and consistent academic performance in a community where housing costs are very high and the student body is predominantly White with moderate racial and ethnic diversity.
On state assessments administered through the NextGen MCAS, Bishop students perform well across the board. In the most recent testing year, the share of students scoring at the proficient level or above was solidly above the midpoint for both English language arts and mathematics, and the school’s overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades places it in the top quartile among districts in Middlesex County. Science results in grade five were especially high, with a very large majority of students meeting the proficiency bar. These results are not a one-year spike. Over the past several years, ELA proficiency has held in the upper range, and math proficiency, after a dip partway through the period, has recovered and remained near that same strong level. The school’s participation rate on all three tests was complete, meaning the results reflect nearly every student.
The student population is sized for a neighborhood elementary school, with enrollment spread fairly evenly across the kindergarten through fifth grade. The largest racial group is White, followed by students who identify as two or more races, Asian, Hispanic, and Black. The school does not report the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, nor does it report counts for students with disabilities or English learners. This is a notable gap. A parent who wants to understand the level of economic diversity or the extent of special-education and language-support services would need to ask the school or district directly, because the available data does not provide those figures.
Arlington itself shapes the context families will experience. It is a walkable, transit-connected town with a lively commercial corridor along Massachusetts Avenue, a historic downtown anchored by the Regent Theatre and Robbins Library, and the Minuteman Bikeway running through its center. Multiple MBTA bus routes serve the town, and Route 2 runs along its southern border for regional access. The town’s housing market is extremely expensive; home values and rents are well above national medians, reflecting Arlington’s desirability and its proximity to Boston. Median household incomes have risen in recent years, and the town has seen a pattern of gentrification and increasing affluence. The schools are distributed across neighborhoods—Bishop is one of seven elementary buildings, each tied to its own residential area—so many children can walk or bike to school, and the civic life of the town centers on Arlington Center rather than a single school campus.
No recent district-level changes or initiatives were identified in publicly available materials, so there is no reported shift in curriculum, boundaries, or programming to note. For a family who can afford the area’s housing, John A Bishop looks like a solid academic fit within a high-performing district. The missing data on economic and special-population indicators means a parent may want to follow up with the school to get a fuller picture of student support and peer context, but on academic grounds the school delivers consistent proficiency that compares favorably with others in the county.
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