The top reported proficiency rate is 20% in Math. The lowest is 9% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Crothers Elementary School
Crothers Elementary School sits in Warren, Michigan, a large inner-ring suburb of Detroit and the largest community in Macomb County. Warren grew explosively in the postwar decades, driven by the auto industry and defense employment, and has been gradually losing population since its peak. It remains Michigan's third-largest city, with a mature suburban fabric of mid-century subdivisions, wide arterial roads, and strip commercial corridors rather than a walkable downtown. The city is auto-oriented, and Crothers families will find daily life here organized around driving. Public transit exists through SMART bus service but is commuter-oriented rather than comprehensive. Housing in the school's zip code is relatively affordable for the region, with typical home values below the Michigan state benchmark and well below national figures. Rents are modest relative to income. The county-wide market has been softening somewhat, with growing inventory and cooling demand, which may give incoming families more options.
Crothers is part of Center Line Public Schools, a district that serves the small city of Center Line, which is entirely enclosed within Warren, plus surrounding neighborhoods. The district has invested in its K-5 buildings recently, with a new Peck Elementary opening in 2020 and Roose Elementary renovated in 2022. Victory Elementary, a wartime-era building, was demolished in 2024 and its site converted into the Victory Garden, an agricultural teaching lab developed with Macomb County and Michigan State University. At the high school level, the district has moved to wall-to-wall career academies combining career and technical education, Advanced Placement, and global offerings, with the stated goal that every graduate earns post-secondary credit or an industry certification. Those downstream offerings are worth noting for parents thinking about the full K-12 pathway through this district.
Crothers itself serves kindergarten through fifth grade and has a sizable enrollment for an elementary school, with class cohorts generally in the mid-forties to low-eighties range. The student body is diverse in racial and ethnic composition, with white students forming the largest single group, followed by Black students, then Asian students, and a smaller multiracial share and Hispanic share. A very large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the working-class character of this part of Warren. The school's locale and community context data beyond demographics were not available in the provided materials, and we looked for details on staffing ratios, course access, discipline, and attendance but found none reported.
On Michigan's M-STEP assessments for the 2024-25 school year, proficiency rates at Crothers were low across tested grades and subjects. Third-grade math saw roughly a quarter of tested students reach proficiency, while fourth-grade math fell below that, and fifth-grade math proficiency was reported in a very low range. English language arts results were also modest, with third-grade ELA proficiency the lowest among the tested grades, fourth grade somewhat higher, and fifth grade in between. Fifth-grade science and social studies proficiency were both quite low. Among the tested subjects and grades, math and ELA results sit below the median for Macomb County districts, and the school's overall proficiency index falls in the bottom quartile relative to its county peers. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking how instruction is being strengthened and what supports are in place for students working below grade level.
No graduation rate, chronic absenteeism rate, or trend data across multiple years was available for this school, which is expected since Crothers is an elementary building and does not award diplomas. State testing for kindergarten through second grade is not administered, so those grades have no proficiency results to report. The absence of a graduation rate reflects the grade band, not a gap in performance. Participation rates for the assessments that were reported were not available in the data, so we cannot speak to how completely the tested grades were assessed.
Warren's employment base is anchored by major automotive and defense employers, including the General Motors Technical Center, the U.S. Army Detroit Arsenal, and Stellantis facilities. For families connected to those industries, Crothers is a neighborhood option in a community where the housing is accessible and the district has shown recent willingness to invest in its buildings and rethink its secondary programs. The academic results at the elementary level, though, are the central consideration, and parents weighing this school should treat the proficiency data as a prompt for direct conversation with the school about instructional priorities and student support.
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