The top reported proficiency rate is 31% in English language arts. The lowest is 7% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Bedford School
Bedford School is a regular public elementary school in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as part of Dearborn Heights School District #7. The school sits on Croissant Street in the eastern part of the city, in a ZIP code where home values run well below both the state and national benchmarks. Housing here is affordable by most measures, with estimated monthly mortgage costs that come in lower than typical rents in the same area, and the broader Wayne County market currently shows ample active listings with moderate days on market. For a family looking to buy near the school, the price-to-income ratio sits below the national figure, meaning ownership is comparatively within reach.
Dearborn Heights itself is an inner-ring suburb of Detroit, roughly a dozen miles west of downtown, and functions primarily as a bedroom community. The built environment is predominantly single-family residential with commercial strips along major arterial roads. There is no traditional walkable downtown; civic life is dispersed across separate campuses, including two public libraries and the Dearborn Heights Justice Center. The city is divided among five school districts, and Bedford belongs to the smallest of those, District #7. Publicly reported census data describes a diverse population with a substantial share of foreign-born residents and many households speaking a language other than English at home. The city has been experiencing a modest population decline in recent years, and no major new housing developments were identified in available search results.
At Bedford, enrollment is moderate for an elementary building, with fairly even distribution across the grade levels. The student body is diverse: nearly half of students are white, with the next largest group being Black students, followed by Hispanic students and smaller shares of multiracial, Asian, and American Indian or Alaska Native students. A very large proportion of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which speaks to the economic pressures many families in the attendance area face. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not available, so those populations could not be characterized here.
On state assessments through Michigan's M-STEP, Bedford's results are mixed across grades and subjects. In third and fourth grade math, proficiency rates land in a middling range, with fourth grade performing somewhat better than third. Fifth grade math proficiency drops off sharply, and fifth grade English language arts sits below the third and fourth grade levels as well. Science proficiency in fifth grade is low, and social studies proficiency in fifth grade is very low. The school's overall proficiency index, which averages results across tested subjects and grades, places it above the midpoint among districts in Wayne County, which is a broad set of more than a hundred districts. That said, the fifth grade results stand out as an area of concern, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly to understand what supports are in place as students prepare for the transition to middle school.
No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent an improvement or decline from prior years. Participation rates for the assessments were also missing from the data. Because Bedford is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to report, and no chronic absenteeism figure was available for comparison.
The district brief for Dearborn Heights School District #7 turned up no confirmed parent-relevant changes such as bond elections, curriculum shifts, or property tax adjustments in the recent period searched. This means the picture here is a snapshot of what is publicly reported now, without the context of recent initiatives or transitions that a family might ask about during a school visit. Bedford is a school serving a working-class, diverse community in an affordable suburban setting, with academic results that hold their own against the county on average but show clear weakness in the upper elementary grades.
See more original research from School Decision →