The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in English language arts. The lowest is 14% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Crescent Academy Middle School
Crescent Academy Middle School sits on Franklin Road in Southfield, an inner-ring Detroit suburb that functions as a major business and commercial hub for the metro area. The city is auto-oriented, organized around the Reuther and Lodge freeways, with separated office parks, commercial strips, and residential neighborhoods rather than a continuous walkable fabric. Southfield's civic life centers on its Civic Center complex and the Southfield City Centre district near the freeway interchange, which combines office, university, and residential uses. Lawrence Technological University and Oakland Community College are both located here, adding an educational presence to what is otherwise a corporate landscape anchored by automotive and technology employers. The former Northland Center mall, one of the nation's earliest shopping malls, is being redeveloped into a mixed-use residential and commercial complex, which may eventually create a more walkable node. Housing in the school's zip code sits below both the state and national benchmarks for typical home values, with rents also modest and slightly declining year over year. That makes the area relatively affordable for metro Detroit, though the built environment is very car-dependent.
Crescent Academy is a charter school serving grades six through nine, and its enrollment is small for that grade band. Nearly all students are Black, and nearly all qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school operates within the Crescent Academy district, which publicly reported information indicates runs three schools spanning pre-kindergarten through tenth grade. We looked for recent district-level changes that would matter to families and found little of lasting impact, so there is not much to report on that front.
State assessment results from the most recent year are available and paint a mixed picture. In English language arts, the school performs better. Seventh-grade proficiency reaches a level that, while below the county midpoint, shows a meaningful share of students meeting the bar. Eighth-grade ELA is stronger still, with a higher proficiency rate that suggests some growth as students move through the upper grades. Math is the clearest area of difficulty. Both seventh and eighth grade math proficiency fall into the lowest reported range, with no students reaching proficiency in either grade. Science and social studies results for eighth grade are also low, with only a small fraction of students scoring proficient. A parent considering this school may want to look into math instruction and support more closely with the school, given how flat those results are across both tested grades.
Against the comparison set of districts in Oakland County, the school's overall proficiency index lands below the midpoint. The county's districts range widely, and Crescent Academy sits in the lower portion of that spread. This is a county with considerable variation in school performance, so the position is not unusual for a small charter serving a high-poverty student population, but it is where the data places the school.
Several data gaps are worth naming. Special education and English learner counts were not reported, so the picture of student support services is incomplete. Participation rates for the state tests are missing as well. There is no chronic absenteeism figure, no staffing information, and no course access data. No graduation rate applies here because the school does not go through twelfth grade, though it does include a small ninth-grade cohort. Civil rights data was not available. Multi-year trend data was not provided, so it is hard to say whether these proficiency levels represent a stable pattern or a point in time.
What this school offers is a small, nearly entirely Black enrollment in a charter setting within an affordable, commercially dense suburb. ELA results show some real capacity for student growth, particularly by eighth grade. Math is a soft spot that a family would want to understand before enrolling. The surrounding community has institutional anchors and ongoing redevelopment, but the day-to-day environment is car-centric rather than walkable. For a family prioritizing a small school environment and an affordable Southfield address, this could fit, with the caveat that academic support in math is a question worth asking directly.
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