Joe Walker Middle: This school runs ahead of the state average. The bar itself is the harder conversation.
Joe Walker posts 50% meeting the standard against 39% statewide — ahead of most, with real headroom above the bar.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 43 | 23% | 50% | — | 24.4% | 10.2% |
| CA average · Middle School | 38 | 17% | 39% | — | 18.5% | 3.7% |
Joe Walker Middle scores 43 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 68th percentile of 2,238 California middle schools (CDE CAASPP 2025).
Measures test performance, attendance, and climate — not arts, community, or your kid. How we score →
🌱 Building Momentum — This label means the data doesn't clearly sort the school one way or the other — ask what the school is proud of, and what it's working on.
Most rating sites would stop at “50% proficient” and call it done. Joe Walker deserves a closer read. The school sits in Lancaster, where more than half of students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
The seven-year arc
Climbed from the 56th to the 68th percentile since 2019 — past roughly 200 middle schools.
The pandemic drop is behind this school: 50% of students meet the standard today, above the 46% who did in 2019.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 73% | 75% | 97% | 100% | 97% |
| Grade 7 | 59% | 48% | 50% | 38% | 40% |
| Grade 8 | 52% | 38% | 46% | 42% | 39% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 42% | 54% | 76% | 77% | 76% |
| Grade 7 | 25% | 18% | 23% | 22% | 24% |
| Grade 8 | 26% | 16% | 20% | 21% | 22% |
The story this school is actually telling
The school, grade by grade
ELA · CAASPP 2024–25Different students, same year — each bar is one grade's proficiency mix.
The honest read: the share exceeding falls 35.3pp across grades; the floor slips 57.8pp. The state average rises 0.1pp over the same span. A school visit and conversation with teachers will tell you more than this number.
The 6 things our score weighs
California's own answer to the same question
California runs its own growth model — it follows individual children in grades 4 through 8 and compares each one against a prediction from their own prior scores. On that measure this school sits well below the middle of California middle schools in reading and math together. We show it; we don't score it.
— pts vs expected is scale-score points above or below what California's model predicted for these same children from their own prior-year scores. It is not a percentage and not a percent of anything. A typical California middle school lands at −1 in reading, and the middle half of them fall between −8 and +6 — the spread is wide, so read the rank, not the sign. CDE blends two consecutive years into each published figure, so adjacent years share input data and no year-over-year trend can honestly be drawn from them. It covers grades 4-8 only, and it is not part of the Scope Score — we assessed it and left it out: it tracks school demographics roughly three times as strongly as our own growth measure does, and one published year is not enough to test how stable it is.
Ask how the school challenges kids who clear the standard early. The gap between meeting and exceeding is where pacing shows.
- Ask how the school follows up when a student starts missing days — chronic absence often starts outside the classroom, not inside it.
- Ask what typically leads to a suspension, and what happens before it gets there.
- Ask what changes between grade 6 and grade 8 here, and who teaches the older kids.
- Ask whether the tour can step into a working classroom — watch how the teacher handles a student who's stuck.
- Ask to tour while school's in session, and notice how hallways and transitions feel — culture shows up between classes, not just in them.
- Ask how the school communicates with families when a child starts to struggle.
How every group of students does here
At Joe Walker Middle in Lancaster, 34.5% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 37.4% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Joe Walker Middle trails its district average for low-income students by 2.9 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (16.9% Math proficient); Hispanic students (38.5% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 52.1 percentage points for english learner students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 462 students tested.
5 of 16 student groups here are too small to report — a privacy protection, not a gap.
Change in proficiency from the lowest tested grade — which groups gain ground the longer they stay. Groups with fewer than 10 tested students per grade are not shown.
Low-income student ELA proficiency falls by 67.6pp from grade 6 to grade 8 at this school. District average: -8.3pp.
California follows these children individually and predicts each one's score from their own prior year. Each row is read against the same group at a typical California middle school — not against zero, and not against this school's all-students figure, because the state's expectation already differs by group.
— 2 more groups are reported here with between 11 and 29 students. We hold those back on purpose: at that size the figure swings about 17 points on its own, and a quarter of such groups land past the state's top or bottom cut point by chance alone. They are listed with their student counts in the data appendix. — A group not listed at all had fewer than 11 students with a growth score, so California published nothing for it here. That is a privacy protection, not a judgment about those students. — Context only. None of this enters the Scope Score.
Showing up, and staying in class
Grades 7–8 students miss school at roughly three times the rate of Grades 4–6 students (25.4% vs 3.0%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the upper grades.
Where the path goes
The path below follows attendance boundaries — scores shown for each next step.
Feeder patterns derived from NCES attendance boundary data. Boundaries are approximate and may have changed — verify with your school district for current assignments.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
What gets spent here
$115 per student arrives as federal Title funding — a measure of concentrated need, not school quality.
The district's current expense of education per student, from CDE's annual SACS filing — the freshest district spending figure the state publishes.
District-level, from the district's own SACS general-ledger filing — school-by-school breakdowns aren't published by the state.
Source: NCES F-33 · Full district breakdown →
The neighborhood it serves
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2024) · ZIP-level
On the state's science test (CAST), 24% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 and once in high school, and it never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Joe Walker Middle a good middle school?
What are Joe Walker Middle's CAASPP test scores?
How does Joe Walker Middle rank in California?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Joe Walker Middle?
How does Joe Walker Middle compare to other schools in Lancaster?
How does Joe Walker Middle serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Middle Schools
2 within ~3 mi · avg 32
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 40
Private alternatives nearby
Private schools within ~10 miles. These schools do not participate in state testing and cannot be scored or ranked.
Every number on this page
Score factors, grade-level breakdowns, subgroup proficiency, and nearest schools.
| ELA | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 33 | 48% | 48% | 3% | 0% | 97% | +51 |
| Grade 7 | 356 | 12% | 28% | 23% | 37% | 40% | −8 |
| Grade 8 | 373 | 13% | 26% | 23% | 38% | 39% | −7 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 33 | 42% | 33% | 21% | 3% | 76% | +41 |
| Grade 7 | 353 | 10% | 13% | 27% | 49% | 24% | −10 |
| Grade 8 | 368 | 9% | 13% | 21% | 57% | 22% | −10 |
We show the grade rows CDE publishes for this school. A missing grade or dash can mean the school does not serve that grade, no valid result was published, or the tested group was too small to report. It does not mean zero.
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schoolwide | 372 | 5% | 20% | 61% | 15% |
CAST is tested in grades 5 and 8, then once in grade 10, 11, or 12. This row is the school's all-student aggregate. Not part of the Scope Score.
| Subgroup · ELA | Tested | MET+ | vs district | vs CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 462 | 34.5% | −3 | −4 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 404 | 38.5% | −5 | −0 |
| White | 196 | 49.5% | −5 | −12 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Grade gap | Cohort growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Walker Middle ← | — | 43 | 22.6% | 49.5% | −55.9pp | — | 10.2% |
| Hillview Middle | 2.6 mi | 52 | 27.6% | 54.6% | −45.1pp | — | 7.6% |
| Endeavour Middle | 2.1 mi | 12 | 1.8% | 11.6% | −0.6pp | — | 10.6% |
| California average | — | 38 | 16.8% | 39.3% | +1.5pp | — | 3.7% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Grade gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 37 | 56 | #890 | 14.2% | 46.3% | 10.6% | 5.4% | -18.5pp |
| 2022 | 36 | 59 | #884 | 14.7% | 41.5% | 34.8% | 5.6% | -37.3pp |
| 2023 | 45 | 76 | #526 | 21.4% | 52.1% | 26.6% | 6.8% | -53.1pp |
| 2024 | 45 | 71 | #634 | 20.2% | 50.1% | 22.3% | 8.5% | -56.9pp |
| 2025 | 43 | 68 | #721 | 22.6% | 49.5% | 24.4% | 10.2% | -55.9pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 10.7% | 22.9% | +12.2pp |
| Male | 10.5% | 25.9% | +15.4pp |
| Asian | 0.0% | 6.3% | +6.3pp |
| Black/African American | 14.4% | 32.7% | +18.3pp |
| White | 0.0% | — | — |
| Hispanic/Latino | 10.2% | 25.2% | +15.0pp |
| Two or More Races | 15.6% | 33.9% | +18.3pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 16.2% | 34.8% | +18.6pp |
| English Learners | 9.8% | 21.2% | +11.4pp |
| Foster Youth | 15.4% | 33.3% | +17.9pp |
| Homeless | 15.1% | 34.6% | +19.5pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 15.0% | 29.8% | +14.8pp |
| All Students | 10.6% | 24.5% | +13.9pp |
| Group | Reading | n | CDE band | Math | n | CDE band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Students | −13 | 709 | Moderate | −20 | 704 | Moderate |
| English Only | −12 | 584 | not categorised | −21 | 580 | not categorised |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | −15 | 427 | Moderate | −22 | 425 | Minimal |
| Hispanic or Latino | −13 | 365 | Moderate | −25 | 362 | Minimal |
| White | −19 | 194 | Moderate | −13 | 193 | Moderate |
| Students with Disabilities | −35 | 96 | Minimal | −19 | 96 | Moderate |
| Black or African American | +1 | 77 | Average | −11 | 76 | Moderate |
| English Learner | −22 | 75 | Minimal | −16 | 74 | Moderate |
| Homeless Youth | −9 | 59 | Moderate | −21 | 59 | Minimal |
| Two or More Races | −14 | 50 | Moderate | −17 | 50 | Moderate |
| Recently Reclassified Fluent-English Proficient Only | −24 | 41 | not categorised | −19 | 41 | not categorised |
| English Learners Only | −22 | 34 | not categorised | −14 | 33 | not categorised |
| Long-Term English Learner (grades 6-8 only) | −20 | 34 | Moderate | −17 | 33 | Moderate |
| Asian | +2 | 16 | Average | −13 | 16 | Moderate |
| Foster Youth | −2 | 13 | Average | −21 | 13 | Minimal |
Whole scale-score points above or below what CDE's model predicted for these same children from their own prior-year scores — not a percentage, not a percentile. Statewide a typical school lands near +1 with a spread of about 13 points either side, so read a figure against its group's own typical value, not against zero. Muted rows have fewer than 30 students with a growth score — published by CDE, held back from the narrative sections above because at that size the figure swings about 17 points on its own. “Not categorised” is CDE assigning no band — English Only, Recently Reclassified, and English Learners Only receive a value and no band, for every school in the state. It is not a missing number. Long-Term English Learner counts cover grades 6-8 only (CDE), so that row is not comparable to the All Students row. Most figures blend two consecutive years, so adjacent published years share input data and no trend line can honestly be drawn across them. A group absent from this table had fewer than 11 students with a growth score and was never published. Grades 4-8 only. None of this enters the Scope Score — it is more strongly correlated with school demographics than our own growth measure, and one published year is not enough to test its reliability.
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