Clarke Middle, Two Rivers WI - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Clarke Middle

Clarke Middle is the single public middle school for Two Rivers, a small Lake Michigan city with a working-class, maritime heritage and an older, stable population. The school serves grades five through eight, and the district has recently implemented an elementary realignment, a structural change families should weigh when considering where to live within the attendance area. The school is part of a compact urban fabric where schools, the public library, beaches, and cultural sites like the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum share the same downtown-adjacent setting rather than sitting on isolated campuses.

The student body draws from across the city. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student composition is predominantly white, with smaller shares of Hispanic, Asian, two-or-more-races, and Black students represented. This is the peer environment a family will find. The school has a mid-sized enrollment for a regular public school at this grade band.

In state testing, Clarke Middle’s performance is mixed. In English language arts, results vary by grade: sixth graders showed a stronger share of students meeting or exceeding proficiency, while grades five, seven, and eight landed at lower levels. In math, the share of students at proficiency was lower across all four grades, with eighth-grade math results notably soft. Science and social studies are tested only in eighth grade; a strong share of students met the proficiency mark in social studies, while science results were below that level. Overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades, when compared to other districts in Manitowoc County, places Clarke Middle in the bottom quartile among the set of districts the state uses for comparison. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand supports and trajectories.

No discipline, staffing, attendance, chronic absenteeism, or course-access data were available for this school, so it is not possible to assess those dimensions here. For a middle school, those are gaps a parent may wish to explore directly with the school.

Housing values in the area are below both the state and national benchmarks, and rents are moderate, reflecting the broader economic context of the city and Manitowoc County. For a family, the path from Clarke Middle leads into Two Rivers High School, and the full academic picture will unfold across both buildings. The school sits within a district that has made organizational changes, so a parent may want to ask how those changes affect middle school programming and feeder patterns.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 535%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 41%

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 738%

School 38% · District 39% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median

Grade 828%

School 28% · District 28%

▼ 23 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 544%

School 44% · District 44%

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 656%

School 56% · District 55% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median

Grade 738%

School 38% · District 40% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median

Grade 838%

School 38% · District 38% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median

Science

Grade 844%

School 44% · District 44% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Social studies

Grade 858%

School 58% · District 58%

▼ 6 pts below state median

This schoolTwo Rivers Public 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 5Lower-income37%Higher-income51%14 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income44%Higher-income64%19 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income39%Higher-income38%0 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income33%Higher-income41%8 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income35%Higher-income35%0 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income27%Higher-income50%24 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income34%Higher-income42%8 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income23%Higher-income32%9 pp gap