Madison Elementary, Janesville WI

Original Research by School Decision on Madison Elementary

Madison Elementary is a regular public school in Janesville, Wisconsin, serving students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. It sits on the city’s north side, just off North Grant Avenue, and is part of the Janesville School District. The school’s enrollment is small for an elementary building, and a substantial share of its students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a marker that many families look to when gauging economic need in a school community. The student body is predominantly white, with a large Hispanic presence and smaller shares of Black students and students of two or more races. The school reported no data on students with Individualized Education Programs or English learners, which is a gap a parent may want to investigate further with the school.

The school’s academic performance on state assessments in the most recent tested year shows a mixed picture that falls fairly consistently below the median among elementary schools in Rock County. In third grade, just over half of students scored proficient or advanced in math, and roughly three out of five did so in English language arts. Those figures slipped by fourth and fifth grade, where about half of students reached proficiency in math and less than half did in ELA. In fourth-grade science, the proficiency rate was lower still. Social studies in fourth grade was the strongest tested subject, with a majority of students meeting the bar. Across all tested subjects and grades, Madison Elementary’s overall proficiency index landed in the bottom quartile when compared to other districts in Rock County. For a parent, this pattern suggests a school where academic results are soft, especially as students move through the upper elementary grades. That does not mean the school is without strengths; some children perform well here, and the school may offer supports not captured in a single test snapshot. But the trend is clear enough that a family prioritizing strong standardized outcomes would likely look further.

The school sits within Janesville, a mid-sized city with a mixed manufacturing and commercial economy. The city has a historic downtown anchored by a town square and a park system that residents point to as a defining asset. Janesville has seen modest population growth in recent years, and its housing market shows home values that are lower than the statewide benchmark, which may make it a more accessible market for buyers. The district itself did not have any recent changes of note surfaced in the research, so families moving into the area should expect a stable but not fast-evolving set of options.

Madison Elementary is not a school that posts standout test scores, and its peer environment reflects a community with a high rate of economic need. What it offers is a small-scale setting in a city that has manufacturing roots and a recovering local economy. A parent weighing this school should ask the principal or a teacher how the school supports students who are behind grade level, what enrichment exists for students who are ahead, and what the school’s approach is to those missing special-population numbers. The answers matter more here than they would at a school with a strong academic floor, because the floor is lower.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 353%

School 53% · District 63% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 450%

School 50% · District 55% · ▼ 5 pts below district

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

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 59% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 363%

School 63% · District 59% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 449%

School 49% · District 54% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 549%

School 49% · District 57% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Science

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 48% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 459%

School 59% · District 65% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

This schoolJanesville School District, 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-income60%Higher-income70%10 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income41%Higher-income73%32 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income43%Higher-income62%19 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income60%10 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income43%Higher-income73%30 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income45%Higher-income62%17 pp gap