The top reported proficiency rate is 54% in English language arts. The lowest is 14% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Eastern Middle
Eastern Middle School is a regular public school serving grades six through eight in Silver Spring, within the Montgomery County Public Schools district. The school is located on University Boulevard East in the eastern part of Silver Spring, a densely populated, diverse, and urbanized unincorporated area bordering Washington, D.C. Silver Spring has a downtown core that is walkable and served by a major transit hub, including the Metro Red Line and the future Purple Line light rail. The community is home to a large foreign-born population, with significant Salvadoran, Ethiopian, Indian, and Chinese communities, and the student body at Eastern Middle reflects this diversity. More than half of the students at Eastern Middle qualify for free or reduced-price meals, and the enrollment is large for a middle school, serving a student population in the high hundreds.
State assessment results for the 2024-25 school year show a pattern where English language arts scores are stronger than math scores across all three grades. In sixth grade, roughly half of students met the proficiency bar in ELA, while about a third did so in math. Seventh-grade ELA performance was similar, with slightly more than half proficient, but math proficiency dropped into the single digits. Eighth-grade ELA remained around the halfway mark, while eighth-grade math proficiency was very low, and about a third of eighth graders were proficient in science. On social studies, tested only in eighth grade, just under half of students scored at the proficient level. A multi-year trend is not available, as the data only covers a single school year, so it is not possible to see whether these scores represent a change from prior years. The sharp drop in math proficiency between sixth and seventh grade, and the very low eighth-grade math results, are a soft spot a parent would want to look into further with the school, especially given that overall math proficiency across all grades was below the ELA rate. The school had relatively high participation in the Algebra I end-of-course exam among students who took it, with close to half scoring proficient, and a strong share of students taking Geometry scored proficient, which may indicate that a subset of students is accelerated in math while the broader tested grade-level results are much lower.
The comparison data available does not allow a direct ranking of Eastern Middle against other middle schools in Montgomery County, because the neighbor comparison set could not produce a proficiency index or chronic absenteeism rate with only one district in the set. This means a parent cannot use this tool to see how the school stacks up against nearby peers.
Housing in the area is expensive relative to national benchmarks, with typical home values solidly above the national median and rents also above average. Monthly mortgage costs on a typical home would be well above the national median household income for a single earner, and rent consumes a substantial share of typical income. The Silver Spring area has seen significant downtown redevelopment and population growth, and the district is a major recipient of county funding, with Montgomery County Public Schools receiving a large portion of the county's operating budget. The district recently adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum and is conducting a systemwide boundary analysis that could affect future school attendance areas.
Eastern Middle presents as a large, diverse, urban middle school where English language arts performance is around the halfway mark, but math performance, particularly in the upper grades, is a clear area of concern. The school serves a student body with a high share of economic need, and the surrounding housing market is costly. For a family considering this school, the strongest takeaway is the wide gap between ELA and math results, with math proficiency dropping sharply after sixth grade, and the lack of trend data means it is unclear whether this is a new or ongoing pattern. The school's location in a transit-rich, diverse, and growing part of Montgomery County is a defining characteristic, and the district's ongoing boundary work could affect future enrollment patterns.
See more original research from School Decision →