The top reported proficiency rate is 17% in English language arts. The lowest is 9% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Arthur Eddy Academy
Arthur Eddy Academy is a regular public school in Saginaw, Michigan, serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade on Cathay Street in the city's east side. It sits within the Saginaw School District of the City of, the district that has recently undergone a major restructuring. In fall 2024, the district opened Saginaw United High School, merging what were previously Arthur Hill High School and Saginaw High School into a single facility. The old Arthur Hill building became the Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy, and the former Saginaw High School building became Saginaw Middle School. That consolidation reshaped attendance boundaries and grade configurations across the district, so families with younger children at Arthur Eddy will want to confirm how the upper-grade feeder pattern now works.
The school's enrollment is modest for a building spanning pre-K through sixth. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic conditions of the surrounding community. The student body is predominantly Black, with small numbers of Hispanic, multiracial, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, and white students. The school lists a pre-K grade in its directory though no pre-K enrollment was reported in the current year's data. Information on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those populations cannot be characterized here.
On Michigan's M-STEP assessments for the most recent school year, Arthur Eddy's results are low across every tested subject and grade. Third-grade math proficiency fell within the lowest reporting range, with no students scoring proficient or above. Fourth-grade math was only slightly above that floor. Fifth-grade math returned to the lowest range. English language arts showed a similar pattern: third grade in the lowest range, fourth grade at a low level, and fifth grade only marginally higher. Fifth-grade science and social studies both landed in the lowest reported range as well. When the school's overall proficiency is compared against districts in Saginaw County, it sits in the bottom quartile. This is the clearest academic signal in the data, and a parent considering Arthur Eddy would reasonably want to ask school leadership what interventions and supports are in place to move proficiency upward.
The setting for all of this is Saginaw itself, a city whose identity is tied to its industrial past. Saginaw grew as a lumber town in the nineteenth century and became a manufacturing hub in the twentieth century, anchored by General Motors and automotive parts production. Like much of the Rust Belt, it lost population and jobs as manufacturing contracted. Publicly reported sources note that the city continues to carry a higher share of manufacturing jobs than the national average, and current economic development efforts focus on innovation, clean energy, and manufacturing exports. The population has continued a downward trend through the most recent census estimates.
Housing around the school is very affordable compared with the state and the nation. Typical home values in the school's zip code sit well below the Michigan benchmark and far below the national one, which makes ownership accessible on a local wage. Estimated monthly mortgage costs are modest, and the rent-to-income ratio, where rent data was available, points to reasonable affordability. The national thirty-year mortgage rate has been hovering in the mid-six percent range, and the national unemployment rate has held steady in the low fours. Parents weighing whether to buy or rent near the school will find a market where the cost of entry is low relative to most of the state.
Civic life in Saginaw clusters around a downtown corridor along the Saginaw River, where the Castle Museum, Temple Theatre, and Dow Event Center sit near City Hall. The city sits about fifteen miles inland from Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron, within one of the largest freshwater coastal wetland systems in the country, and near a National Wildlife Refuge. Specific information on walkability, parks, library access, and public transit was not available from the sources reviewed, so those everyday quality-of-life details would need to be checked directly.
What the data presents is an elementary school serving a high-poverty student population in a city still working through decades of economic transition. The academic results are weak in absolute terms and low relative to neighboring districts. The housing market is accessible. The district has shown a willingness to restructure its buildings and grade configurations, which suggests attention to systemic improvement even if the current numbers at this school are not where families would want them. A parent looking at Arthur Eddy should treat the assessment results as a prompt for direct conversation with the school about what is being done and what the trajectory looks like.
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