Malcolm White, Woburn MA - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Malcolm White

Malcolm White is one of the elementary schools in the Woburn public school district, serving a kindergarten-through-grade-five population in a city with a mixed-use character: established residential neighborhoods set alongside a significant commercial and life-sciences employment base. The school itself sits on Bow Street in a part of the city shaped by mid-20th-century highway construction, and like Woburn as a whole, daily life around the school is car-oriented, though older, denser sections exist near the traditional Main Street center.

The student body draws from the surrounding attendance zone and reflects the broader city’s diversity. White students form the largest group in the school’s enrollment, followed by a substantial share of Hispanic students, with smaller populations of Black, Asian, multiracial, and American Indian or Alaska Native students. Data on the proportion of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch was not available in the records we examined. The same is true for the share of students with disabilities and the share classified as English learners, so a parent cannot draw a direct picture of the school’s economic or language-learner profile from this evidence alone.

On the Massachusetts state assessments, known as NextGen MCAS, Malcolm White’s students recorded proficiency rates that lag behind those of many other schools and districts in Middlesex County. Across the tested subjects—English language arts, mathematics, and science—the school placed in the bottom quartile when measured against all districts in the county taken as a group. In the most recent testing year, fewer than one in three students in ELA, math, and science scored at or above the proficient level. The school’s overall proficiency index, a composite across subjects and grades, was below the midpoint and near the lower end of the range for the county. When placed against the county-wide distribution, the school’s position is lower than a parent might expect for a district in this region, and one may want to look into this further with the school to understand current instructional approaches and any targeted support being put in place.

Looking at multi-year trends, the data show a pattern that is worth examining with caution. In the years before the pandemic, ELA proficiency rates appeared higher, near two out of five students, and math proficiency rates generally hovered in a similar range. After the pandemic disruption, both subjects saw a noticeable dip, and while there was some recovery in the early post-pandemic years, the most recent figures are the lowest in the available series. The current year’s numbers are effectively flat with the previous year, showing no clear upward trend. Part of the decline may reflect recent state-level changes to the assessment or the cut scores used to define proficiency, but the data available do not allow a definitive judgment on how much of the drop comes from that shift versus genuine changes in student performance.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no data on chronic absenteeism was available in the records examined.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grades 3-831%

School 31% · District 32% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grades 3-831%

School 31% · District 35% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Science

Grades 3-832%

School 32% · District 37% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

This schoolWoburn, 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 3Lower-income36%Higher-income77%41 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income15%Higher-income44%29 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income4%Higher-income32%29 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income18%Higher-income48%30 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income25%Higher-income65%40 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income11%Higher-income52%41 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income7%Higher-income42%36 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income14%Higher-income52%37 pp gap