The top reported proficiency rate is 37% in English language arts. The lowest is 10% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Macarthur Middle
MacArthur Middle School sits on Fort George G. Meade, a sprawling U.S. Army installation in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The school serves grades six through eight and is a regular public school within the Anne Arundel County Public Schools system. Its location means the student body is drawn largely from the military community—active-duty families, civilian employees, and contractors who live on or near the base. The installation itself is a self-contained environment: seven schools, a post exchange, chapels, and support facilities spread across thousands of acres, with no civilian downtown. Getting around requires a car; a limited shuttle runs on post.
The school enrolls roughly 842 students across the three middle grades. The student population is majority Black, with a substantial share of White and Hispanic students, and a smaller number of Asian and multiracial students. About half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of economic need that is not uncommon in military-adjacent communities. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the records we reviewed, so those aspects of the student profile are not part of this account.
Academically, MacArthur Middle’s state assessment results are low. On the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) and the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment (MISA) for the 2024-25 school year, proficiency rates across tested subjects and grade levels fell well below what most families would consider typical. In math, the overall proficiency rate was roughly 11 percent across all tested grades, with the highest single-grade rate in seventh grade and the lowest in eighth grade. In English language arts, the overall rate was about 38 percent, with a noticeable drop between seventh and eighth grade. Science proficiency for eighth graders was roughly 14 percent, and social studies proficiency for eighth graders was about 23 percent. These figures describe a school where most students are not yet meeting the state’s academic benchmarks. A parent considering this school may want to examine what supports for math and literacy are in place and how the school addresses the gaps these scores represent. State testing data for a single year provides only a snapshot, and the school may have initiatives that are not captured in these results.
The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and it is not a Title I school according to the data we have—though it is unclear whether that status simply was not reported. No information on advanced coursework, career pathways, or special programs was available. Since this is a middle school, there is no graduation rate to report.
Fort Meade itself shapes the experience of attending MacArthur Middle. The installation is a major employment hub, home to the National Security Agency, U.S. Cyber Command, and dozens of other federal and military agencies. The military population brings a degree of transience; families move in and out with assignments. The school sits inside a secure facility, and all vehicles entering the base are subject to identification checks. The surrounding civilian communities—Odenton, Laurel, Severn, Columbia—provide off-post housing and services, but the school itself is part of the installation’s internal network of schools. The district recently opened Severn Run High School in the western county area, which redrew some attendance boundaries, but that change affects high school feeder patterns, not middle school boundaries directly.
For a military family newly assigned to Fort Meade, MacArthur Middle will be the default middle school on post. The peer environment reflects the diversity of the military and surrounding civilian communities. The academic results are a genuine concern, and any family moving here should expect to engage actively with teachers and administrators to understand how their child’s needs will be met. The school’s setting—on a secure, car-dependent military base—is a plain fact of daily life, not a judgment. Some families will find that stability and community support within the installation is a plus; others may prefer the off-post options in neighboring districts. The data does not provide enough detail on discipline, attendance, or staffing to round out the picture further, so those are open questions a prospective parent would need to explore directly with the school.
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