Breeden El, Brownsville TX - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Breeden El

Breeden Elementary sits in Brownsville, a growing border city anchored by the Port of Brownsville, SpaceX operations, and a distinctive downtown historic district. The school serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and draws a student body that is almost entirely Hispanic, with nearly all students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The enrollment hovers around a mid-sized number for its grade span, distributed fairly evenly across each grade.

On Texas state assessments, Breeden's performance shows a pattern of strength in the upper elementary grades and relative softness in the younger tested grades. In third grade, the school achieved proficiency in math at a lower rate and in English language arts at a moderate rate. Fourth-grade results improved noticeably: math proficiency rose to about the midpoint, and English language arts reached a majority of students. By fifth grade, the gains continued. Math proficiency climbed further, and English language arts held steady; science proficiency, tested only in fifth grade, sat below the midpoint. Across all tested subjects, the school met or exceeded proficiency for a strong share of students, with mastery-level performance (the highest attainment bracket) concentrated in a smaller subset. When consolidated across all subjects and grades, Breeden's overall proficiency index placed it in the top quartile among districts in Cameron County, a meaningful positioning that reflects solid foundational teaching, particularly in grades four and five.

The school operates within Brownsville ISD, a district navigating substantial structural headwinds. The district faces multi-year enrollment decline and a falling birth rate, which prompted the consolidation of three pairs of elementary schools in the Southmost area starting in 2024. Breeden itself was not part of that consolidation, but the broader context matters for families: the district has drawn down reserves to cover budget deficits, recently cut after-school academy programs from a five-day to a three-day weekly schedule in response to federal funding losses, and voters rejected a major bond package in late 2025. That failure means the district will continue addressing aging infrastructure—leaking roofs, aging air-conditioning, and decades-old windows in many schools—only on an emergency basis rather than systematically. Breeden families may want to ask the school directly about the age and condition of the building and any known maintenance needs.

The Brownsville housing market has been active. Home values in the zip code are moderate relative to national benchmarks, and monthly rental costs are well below what mortgage payments would be, creating affordability for renting families. The city itself is in a growth phase driven by major development and job creation, though the school district's enrollment trends run in the opposite direction.

For a family considering Breeden, the school offers solid academic grounding in the upper elementary years and sits in the stronger half of district performance. The younger grades show more variability, so a parent might want to discuss with the school how they support third-grade transition and what instructional approaches are in place for students beginning formal reading and math assessment. The broader district context—budget pressure, deferred facilities maintenance, and recent program reductions—is something a family should understand as part of the landscape, though Breeden's position relative to peer schools suggests it has maintained teaching quality despite those pressures.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 21% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 24% · ▲ 28 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 61% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 355%

School 55% · District 50% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 459%

School 59% · District 56% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 62% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Science

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 3% · ▲ 34 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

This schoolBROWNSVILLE ISD, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income52%Higher-income67%15 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income56%Higher-income93%37 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income31%Higher-income42%11 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income49%Higher-income75%26 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income58%Higher-income86%28 pp gap