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Test scores

Harding Middle School · Des Moines, IA
See how it ranks: all Iowa schools by score · Polk County schools by score

ISASP, SY 2024-25

All grades, all students. % Proficient.
English Language Arts
42.1%
State avg 73.6%
District avg 52.2%
County avg 70.0%
-1.7pp since 2023-24
Mathematics
42.3%
State avg 70.9%
District avg 47.9%
County avg 66.7%
+4.9pp since 2023-24
Science
35.2%
State avg 67.2%
District avg 44.4%
County avg 62.4%
+1.7pp since 2023-24

What this means: On the ISASP, Iowa's statewide test, about 42 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level, about 42 of 100 do math at grade level, and about 35 of 100 are at grade level in science. Across all Iowa schools, those numbers are about 74, 71, and 67. Reading and writing scores are down about 2 points since 2023, while math scores are up about 5 points and science scores are up about 2 points.

BeatsExpectations

Demographically-adjusted score · methodology
Tier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
39.9%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
47.6%
based on IA schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-7.8pp
below demographic expectation

What this means: About 40% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 48% typical for Iowa schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among Iowa's top nor bottom 10%.

BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →

By grade, SY 2024-25

School score vs state average per tested grade.
GradeEnglish Language ArtsMathematicsScience
SchoolStaten testedSchoolStaten testedSchoolStaten tested
Grade 639.6%72.8%15440.3%71.9%154N/AN/AN/A
Grade 737.5%74.8%16843.8%71.8%169N/AN/AN/A
Grade 848.2%80.2%19342.5%74.4%19335.2%70.4%193

2-year history

All grades, all students. Harding   Iowa avg

English Language Arts

73442023-2474422024-25
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2024-2542.1%52.2%70.0%73.6%
SY 2023-2443.8%50.6%68.6%72.7%

Mathematics

70372023-2471422024-25
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2024-2542.3%47.9%66.7%70.9%
SY 2023-2437.4%46.5%65.5%69.8%

Science

62342023-2467352024-25
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2024-2535.2%44.4%62.4%67.2%
SY 2023-2433.5%38.2%56.8%61.5%

Recent discussions

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How to read these scores

What is ISASP?
ISASP is the statewide standardized test administered by Iowa public schools.
What does "% Proficient" mean?
It is the share of students at the school who performed at grade level or above on the test, summed across the top two of four performance levels. A higher number is better.
What does 42.1% mean for English Language Arts at Harding Middle School?
It means about 42.1 percent of students tested at Harding Middle School performed at grade level or above on the ISASP English Language Arts test in 2024-25. The statewide average for Iowa that year was 73.6%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Iowa, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Iowa Department of Education, Iowa State Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP). School-level data by grade and subject from educate.iowa.gov. Headline metric is the cumulative "Proficient" rate (Proficient + Advanced, top 2 of 3 ISASP levels).
How often is it updated?
ISASP is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.

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