The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in English language arts. The lowest is 14% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Hiller Elementary School
Hiller Elementary School sits in Madison Heights, an inner-ring suburb of Detroit roughly a dozen miles north of downtown, in Oakland County. The school serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as part of Lamphere Public Schools, one of two public school districts operating within the city. It is a regular public school, neither a charter nor a magnet, and its enrollment is modest for an elementary building spanning those grades. The student body reflects the working-class, commercially oriented community around it. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The racial and ethnic mix is diverse, with white students forming the largest single group, followed by Black, Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial students. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those populations could not be characterized here.
State assessment results from the current school year are available for grades three through five in math and English language arts, and for grade five in science and social studies. Proficiency in math sits in the low-to-mid thirties across the three tested grades, with fourth grade the strongest. English language arts results are in a similar range, with fourth grade reaching the highest level among the tested grades and third grade the lowest. Science proficiency for fifth graders lands just under a third, while social studies proficiency is notably lower, with only a small fraction of fifth graders reaching proficiency. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it below the midpoint relative to districts in Oakland County, a comparison set of roughly fifty districts. A parent weighing these results may want to ask the school how it supports students performing below grade level, particularly in social studies and early-grade literacy.
The community context is shaped by Madison Heights's identity as an auto-oriented suburb with a strong commercial and industrial base. The city has no traditional downtown; civic life centers on the municipal complex along Thirteen Mile Road, and commercial activity is spread across shopping centers and arterial road corridors rather than concentrated in a walkable core. Interstate 75 runs along the western edge, and another interstate forms the southern border, giving residents easy highway access. The city is part of Oakland County's Automation Alley tech corridor, with numerous industrial parks and a substantial concentration of businesses. Publicly reported sources note the presence of a large Asian supermarket and a Chinese Cultural Center, reflecting an Asian community presence in the city. The population has been in steady decline since its peak decades ago, though the city retains a sizable commercial and industrial tax base that supports a portion of its public revenue.
Housing in the zip code surrounding the school is relatively affordable compared with both state and national benchmarks. Home values are well below the state midpoint and further below the national figure, and rents are moderate. The local market has seen a slight year-over-year dip in home values, while rents have edged upward modestly. Countywide, listing activity has grown, with more homes coming onto the market and a moderate supply score, suggesting buyers have some room to maneuver. For a family renting or buying near Hiller, the cost of living is likely to be one of the more accessible points of entry into Oakland County.
Several data gaps are worth naming. No chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing, course access, or attendance figures were available for the school, so the picture of daily school climate is limited. No graduation rate applies, since Hiller is an elementary school. The district brief for Lamphere Public Schools did not surface any parent-relevant changes such as bond issues, curriculum shifts, or budget actions meeting a lasting-impact threshold, so there is little to report on recent district-level developments. Trend data for academic performance over time was not available either, so the current proficiency figures represent a single-year snapshot rather than a trajectory.
What a family finds at Hiller is a small, diverse elementary school in an affordable, commercially grounded suburb, with assessment results that trail the county midpoint and room to ask questions about how the school moves students toward grade-level mastery.
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