The top reported proficiency rate is 40% in English language arts. The lowest is 15% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Mark Twain El
Mark Twain Elementary sits on Larkspur Drive in Richardson, Texas, serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade as part of Richardson ISD. The school's student body is predominantly Hispanic, with Black students making up a smaller but meaningful share and white and Asian students together representing a modest portion of enrollment. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, meaning the school serves a population with substantial economic need. English learner counts and special education rates were not available in the data.
On the Texas STAAR assessment, the picture is mixed and worth understanding carefully. In reading and language arts, the school shows its strongest results in the upper grades tested, particularly sixth grade, where roughly half of students scored at the "meets grade level" standard or above. Third and fourth grade ELA results are more modest. Math tells a sharper story: across all tested grades, proficiency at the "meets" level is low, and in third and fourth grade the numbers are very small, partly because a subset of students tested on the Spanish-language STAAR rather than the English version, producing very small tested groups. Fifth and sixth grade math results are in the low-to-mid range. Science, tested in fifth grade, falls in a similar range. Stepping back to the school-wide summary, a majority of students reach the "approaches grade level" threshold across subjects, but far fewer reach "meets," and only a small fraction reach "masters." A parent who wants to understand whether individual grades are improving or declining year over year should ask the school directly, as only one year of data was available and no trend line can be drawn.
Relative to districts in Dallas County, Mark Twain's overall proficiency index lands below the midpoint of that group. That framing is useful context, though it reflects the demographic and economic profile of the school as much as any other factor.
One development families should know about directly affects Mark Twain: Richardson ISD is in the middle of a district-wide conversion from a junior-high model to a true middle school model. Sixth grade is being moved off elementary campuses and into middle school buildings serving grades six through eight. Two campuses opened as middle schools in the 2024-25 school year, and the remaining campuses, including the transition of sixth graders currently at elementary schools like Mark Twain, are expected to follow in fall 2028. A family with a child in the lower grades today should expect that sixth grade will be served at a separate middle school campus by the time their child reaches that point, a meaningful change in the school pathway. The district also passed a large bond measure in late 2025 that funds a new Career and Technical Education Center for high school students, technology device replacements, and stadium work, alongside a school tax rate increase. These are district-level changes that shape the broader RISD context a family is choosing into.
Richardson itself is a city with a strong employment base anchored by the Telecom Corridor, publicly reported as the nation's largest concentration of telecommunications companies, with major employers including AT&T, Texas Instruments, Cisco, Verizon, Samsung, State Farm, Raytheon, and BlueCross BlueShield of Texas. The University of Texas at Dallas operates a large research campus within the city. The older downtown CORE District along Main Street and Greenville Avenue is publicly reported to be undergoing a period of transformation, with pedestrian improvements, a new public safety campus, and adaptive reuse development.
Home values near the school are above the Texas statewide median and slightly above the national median, with a modest year-over-year decline. Rents in the area are relatively affordable as a share of income, somewhat more so than buying. Chronic absenteeism data was not available for Mark Twain.
For a family weighing this school, the honest read is that academic proficiency is below average for Dallas County districts, particularly in math, and the sixth-grade pathway is in transition. The school serves a community with high economic need and a large share of Spanish-speaking learners, which shapes both its student population and its instructional approach. A parent interested in how the school supports English learners, what interventions exist for students below grade level, and what the sixth-grade transition timeline means for a specific child would be well served by asking those questions directly.
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