The top reported proficiency rate is 21% in English language arts. The lowest is 0% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Edgewood Elementary
Edgewood Elementary sits in the Edgewood Street corridor of West Baltimore, part of the Baltimore City Public Schools system. Baltimore itself is an independent city with a dense, historic urban fabric. Its economy, once dominated by heavy industry and rail, has shifted toward services, with Johns Hopkins Hospital and University now the top employers. The city’s population has seen a modest decline in recent years, though major infrastructure work is underway. For a school community, this means a setting shaped by the opportunities and challenges of a large, post-industrial American city with deep cultural and institutional anchors.
The school serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. It is a regular neighborhood public school, not a charter or magnet. Enrollment is small for an elementary of this grade span. The student body is overwhelmingly Black, with a very small number of students of other races and ethnicities. A very high share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, reflecting the economic realities of the surrounding neighborhood. Data on the share of students with disabilities or who are English learners was not available in the source materials.
The academic picture, drawn from the most recent year of Maryland state testing, is one that families will want to examine closely. In mathematics, across grades three through five, no student scored at the proficient or advanced level on the MCAP assessments. In English language arts, the results were uneven. In fourth grade, nearly half of students reached proficiency, a result that stands out. But in third grade, fewer than one in ten did, and in fifth grade, the share fell to a very small number. In fifth-grade science, again, no student scored proficient on the MISA assessment. The overall proficiency index, which averages across all tested subjects and grades, places Edgewood Elementary in the bottom quartile relative to other school districts in Baltimore city. Because the school does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report.
Given that differences among the handful of tested grade levels can be heavily influenced by a single cohort, a parent may want to ask the school directly about how reading and math instruction are structured, and whether any targeted interventions are in place. The single-year ELA spike in fourth grade, for example, could reflect a strong group of students or a specific program, and that would be worth understanding.
The housing market for the zip code serving the school remains the most affordable in the area. Home values are well below both the state and national benchmarks, and they have seen some downward movement in the most recent year. Rents, while also below the Maryland average, have edged up slightly. For a family considering the neighborhood, the monthly mortgage cost on a median-priced home is moderately above the typical rent, a common pattern in lower-cost urban areas.
The district itself, Baltimore City Public Schools, did not show any specific, lasting parent-relevant changes in the most recent years according to the materials searched. That means the school’s day-to-day operation and programming are more likely to reflect school-level leadership than recent district-wide restructuring.
For a family weighing Edgewood Elementary, the key takeaway is this. It is a small, neighborhood-focused school serving a high-poverty community in a historic, walkable city. The academic results, particularly in math and in several grade levels of reading and science, are very low, and any parent considering this school would be wise to discuss with the principal what supports are available, how the school identifies struggling students early, and what the plan is for raising proficiency. The school’s size could be an asset for building close relationships between staff and families, but the data do not speak to the quality of those relationships. There is no programmatic data on offer—no enrichment, no arts, no extended learning—so a family would need to visit and ask about what the school provides beyond the core academic day.
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