M-STEP, SY 2024-25
All grades, all students. % Advanced + Proficient.English Language Arts
30.1%
State avg 47.7%
District avg 30.9%
County avg 42.2%
Mathematics
23.4%
State avg 44.8%
District avg 20.8%
County avg 37.2%
Science
32.5%
State avg 47.5%
District avg 29.8%
County avg 41.8%
Social Studies
17.1%
State avg 47.7%
District avg 28.1%
County avg 40.9%
What this means: On the M-STEP, Michigan's statewide test, about 30 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level, about 23 of 100 do math at grade level, about 33 of 100 are at grade level in science, and about 17 of 100 are at grade level in social studies. Across all Michigan schools, those numbers are about 48, 45, 47, and 48.
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
UNDERPERFORMING
Bottom 10% of MI schools after controlling for student poverty
Actual proficiency
26.6%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
44.0%
based on MI schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-17.3pp
below demographic expectation
What this means: About 27% of students here test proficient in math and reading, below the roughly 44% typical for Michigan schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations compares each school with others at the same poverty level, not by raw scores, so a school lands here when its results trail those comparable schools, which is not the same as having low scores. A higher-scoring school can still fall in this tier if similar schools score higher still.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual.
How this is calculated →What is M-STEP?
Michigan public-school students in grades 3 through 8 take the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP) each spring in English Language Arts and Math. Science is added at grades 5, 8, and 11; Social Studies at grades 5, 8, and 11. High school students take the SAT and PSAT as part of the state assessment system.
What does "% Advanced + Proficient" mean?
It is the percentage of students at the school whose scores were "Proficient" or "Advanced" on M-STEP — the top 2 of 4 performance levels (Not Proficient, Partially Proficient, Proficient, Advanced). Proficient and above is Michigan's grade-level benchmark. A higher number is better.
What does 30.1% mean for English Language Arts at Northwest Elementary School?
It means about 30.1 percent of students tested at Northwest Elementary School performed at grade level or above on the M-STEP English Language Arts test in 2024-25. The statewide average for Michigan that year was 47.7%. 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 Michigan, 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?
Michigan Department of Education / Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI), Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP), via the MI School Data "Request School Data File" portal (mischooldata.org). School-level All Students subgroup. Headline metric is the cumulative "Advanced + Proficient" rate (top 2 of 4 M-STEP levels: Advanced, Proficient, Partially Proficient, Not Proficient).
How often is it updated?
M-STEP 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.
