Maude B. Davis Elementary: Two in five kids exceed the standard. But this year's 5th graders test below its 3rd graders.
Maude B. Davis is one of the strongest elementary schools in Costa Mesa by raw achievement. The catch worth understanding: the cohort doesn't gain ground year-over-year.
Maude B. Davis Elementary scores 66 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 92nd percentile of 5,721 California elementary 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 “76% proficient” and call it done. Maude B. Davis deserves a closer read. One in three of its students qualify for free or reduced lunch (California: 64%) — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
Maude B. Davis's low-income kids hit 67.0% proficiency in ELA — a number the same group reaches at 38.2% statewide. If you're trying to read past zip-code-driven test scores, that's the signal worth weighing.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth (2023 G3 → 2025 G5) | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 66 | 50% | 76% | Below avg · p42 | 8.6% | 0.3% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 39 | 21% | 43% | Average · p50 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
The seven-year arc
Has held the 92nd-percentile line every tested year since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 76% meet the standard today, versus 80% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 82% | 74% | 76% | 82% | 84% |
| Grade 4 | 80% | 81% | 66% | 63% | 81% |
| Grade 5 | 80% | 79% | 73% | 64% | 70% |
| Grade 6 | 86% | 81% | 89% | 78% | 80% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 83% | 85% | 73% | 77% | 82% |
| Grade 4 | 82% | 73% | 67% | 68% | 79% |
| Grade 5 | 73% | 71% | 58% | 63% | 62% |
| Grade 6 | 78% | 69% | 71% | 67% | 69% |
Where its students land
The story this school is actually telling
of students scored in the top band on the state test. The California average is 21.4%.
proficiency runs 83% in this year's grade 3 against 66% in its grade 5. The state average rises by +4.6pp over the same span.
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 17.1pp across grades; the floor slips 14.2pp. The state average rises 4.6pp over the same span. The school's 5th graders aren't posting a wider lead than its 3rd graders. One question worth asking on a tour: are the strongest students being pushed, or coasting? A school visit and conversation with teachers will tell you more than this number.
Maude B. Davis's most underrated number
67.0% of low-income students met the ELA standard — versus 38.2% for the same group statewide. That's the strongest kind of signal a school can post: it holds across income lines.
The 6 things our score weighs
returning cohort
Percent exceeded, ELA only. SchoolScope's scored growth measure uses a different metric — mean scale-score change across ELA and Math; California's own matched-student model is below.
California's own answer to the same question
California runs its own growth model, following individual children in grades 4 through 8 rather than comparing school-wide averages the way we do — and here the two measures disagree. Ours puts this school around the 42nd percentile of California elementary schools; the state's puts it around the 71st in reading and math together — a better read than ours. We are not going to pretend one of those is the answer. Neither measure sees an individual child's classroom, and a disagreement this size is worth asking the principal about directly.
— 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 elementary school lands at +2 in reading, and the middle half of them fall between −5 and +9 — 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 the principal what changes between grade 3 and grade 5. Ask who teaches the older grades, and what the school does when a child starts falling behind.
- Ask what changes between grade 3 and grade 5 here, and who teaches the older kids.
- Ask whether extra support — tutoring, counseling, small groups — reaches kids across income lines, not just the students already ahead.
- 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.
- Ask what a typical day looks like for a new student in the first few weeks.
How every group of students does here
At Maude B. Davis Elementary in Costa Mesa, 67.0% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 47.9% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Maude B. Davis Elementary outperforms its district average for low-income students by 19.1 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (58.3% Math proficient); White students (79.9% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 45.5 percentage points for disabilities students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 103 students tested.
5 of 14 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 30.0pp from grade 3 to grade 5 at this school. District average: +0.7pp.
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 elementary school — not against zero, and not against this school's all-students figure, because the state's expectation already differs by group.
— 4 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
TK/K students miss school at roughly twice the rate of Grades 4–6 students (17.7% vs 7.3%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the earliest grades — worth asking how the school works with new families on attendance.
Where the path goes
The path below follows attendance boundaries — scores shown for each next step.
Estimated path based on proximity within the same district. Contact your school district for official feeder information.
The road from this school ends at Estancia High, which sent 13 graduates to UC campuses last fall and teaches 16 AP subjects. Those numbers describe past cohorts — a child starting here today would reach Estancia High around 2035, and 10 years is a long time for a school to hold still, and by the state's 2023 count 71% of Estancia High's graduates enrolled in college somewhere, UC or not.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
What gets spent here
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
Transitional kindergarten is offered here — confirmed by actual Census Day enrollment, not just the listed grade span.
On the state's science test (CAST), 57% 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 Maude B. Davis Elementary a good elementary school?
What are Maude B. Davis Elementary's CAASPP test scores?
How does Maude B. Davis Elementary rank in California?
Is Maude B. Davis Elementary getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Maude B. Davis Elementary?
How does Maude B. Davis Elementary compare to other schools in Costa Mesa?
How does Maude B. Davis Elementary serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 66
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 3 | 77 | 62% | 22% | 13% | 3% | 84% | +41 |
| Grade 4 | 78 | 54% | 27% | 13% | 6% | 81% | +36 |
| Grade 5 | 84 | 45% | 25% | 14% | 15% | 70% | +23 |
| Grade 6 | 80 | 36% | 44% | 14% | 6% | 80% | +34 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 77 | 56% | 26% | 16% | 3% | 82% | +36 |
| Grade 4 | 78 | 36% | 44% | 13% | 8% | 79% | +38 |
| Grade 5 | 84 | 45% | 17% | 27% | 11% | 62% | +27 |
| Grade 6 | 80 | 44% | 25% | 26% | 5% | 69% | +34 |
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 | 84 | 31% | 26% | 40% | 2% |
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 | 103 | 67.0% | +19 | +29 |
| White | 139 | 79.9% | +5 | +18 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 99 | 72.7% | +26 | +34 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Grade gap | Cohort growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maude B. Davis Elementary ← | — | 66 | 49.7% | 76.4% | −17.1pp | +71 pts | 0.3% |
| International School for Science and Culture | 2.6 mi | 80 | 62.5% | 80.4% | — | — | 0.6% |
| Mariners Elementary | 2.7 mi | 61 | 44.4% | 72.6% | +11.4pp | — | 1.0% |
| Cox (James H.) Elementary | 3.4 mi | 57 | 41.1% | 69.5% | −5.8pp | — | 0.1% |
| California average | — | 39 | 21.4% | 42.7% | −2.9pp | — | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Grade gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 73 | 93 | #402 | 49.0% | 80.0% | 3.6% | 0.5% | -6.2pp |
| 2022 | 72 | 93 | #398 | 47.5% | 77.1% | 17.8% | 0.3% | -3.9pp |
| 2023 | 67 | 90 | #595 | 44.8% | 68.8% | 12.8% | 0.1% | -9.2pp |
| 2024 | 54 | 80 | #1121 | 43.2% | 69.3% | 8.8% | 0.6% | -16.0pp |
| 2025 | 66 | 92 | #471 | 49.7% | 76.4% | 8.6% | 0.3% | -17.1pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 2.2% | 7.5% | +5.3pp |
| Male | 4.2% | 8.5% | +4.3pp |
| Asian | 0.0% | 9.6% | +9.6pp |
| Black/African American | 0.0% | — | — |
| Hispanic/Latino | 4.8% | 10.2% | +5.4pp |
| Two or More Races | 1.2% | 6.9% | +5.7pp |
| White | 3.6% | 6.3% | +2.7pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 3.9% | 19.8% | +15.9pp |
| English Learners | 0.0% | 19.0% | +19.0pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 5.6% | 16.7% | +11.1pp |
| All Students | 3.2% | 8.0% | +4.8pp |
| Filipino | — | 8.3% | — |
| Homeless | — | 13.3% | — |
| Group | Reading | n | CDE band | Math | n | CDE band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Students | +8 | 242 | Accelerated | +7 | 242 | Accelerated |
| English Only | +7 | 206 | not categorised | +7 | 206 | not categorised |
| White | −2 | 106 | Average | +3 | 106 | Average |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | +6 | 83 | Accelerated | +9 | 83 | Accelerated |
| Hispanic or Latino | +12 | 74 | Accelerated | +4 | 74 | Average |
| Two or More Races | +18 | 31 | Accelerated | +17 | 31 | Accelerated |
| Students with Disabilities | −14 | 28 | Moderate | −5 | 28 | Average |
| Asian | +9 | 23 | Accelerated | +25 | 23 | Exceptional |
| English Learner | +6 | 20 | Accelerated | +10 | 20 | Accelerated |
| Recently Reclassified Fluent-English Proficient Only | +2 | 14 | not categorised | +3 | 14 | not categorised |
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. 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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