Spring Branch ISD’s Best Elementary and Middle Schools by STAAR Scores 2025

Many Houstonians have a Houston zip code but aren’t part of the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Spring Branch (SBISD) in west Houston’s Memorial area is often compared to its larger neighbor. In SBISD, Spring Branch Academic Institute stands on top as Spring Branch Independent School District (SBISD)‘s best elementary and middle school by Texas STAAR test scores. Other top elementary schools include Wilchester, Memorial Drive, Rummel Creek, and Frostwood. Other top middle schools are Cornerstone Academy, Memorial Middle, and Westchester Academy for International Studies.

Some of these top schools have special admissions processes. Spring Branch Academic Institute (SBAI) is SBISD’s school-within-a-school program for “highly gifted” students that score spectacularly on an IQ test as an elementary student and may even need to secure a spot via lottery on some years. At Cornerstone or Westchester, students participate in an IB curriculum, must maintain high GPA, and secure their spot via the Choice School Lottery.

As with nearly all standardized test results nationwide, the STAAR scores continue to show a nearly inextricable correlation with family wealth. In comparison with the much larger Houston ISD (HISD), SBISD is richer, which powers it overall, higher scores. However, HISD’s sheer size enables it to offer just as many great schools as SBISD and very many more “schools of choice” or magnet options that are application-based.

Texas STAAR Test Grading Levels

The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) tests are the primary, quantitative measure of academic performance for Texas public schools. All public school students in grades 3-12 take some number of STAAR tests, although the testing is most consistent in grades 3-8. The STAAR is administered every spring in core subjects including reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies. The rankings in this article reflect the most recent test results from spring of 2025. Students’ scores are placed into four performance categories:

• Did Not Meet Grade Level – Like an “F” on a regular report card
• Approaches Grade Level – C
• Meets Grade Level – B
• Masters Grade Level – A

“Masters Grade Level” is the highest performance score level that a Texas public school student can achieve and generally represents the top 21% of tested students. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) asserts that students who score in the top two levels, “Meets” or “Masters,” have a more than 60% chance of passing college courses. A Texas public school’s Report Card will always show the percentage of enrolled students who scored in each of the four performance categories.

This ranking looks specifically at the percentage of a school’s students who scored in the highest, “Masters Grade Level” performance category. Because “Masters Grade Level” represents about the top 1/5 of public school students in Texas, any school where more than 21% of students are scoring above this level is outperforming the state average.

Family Income Plays an Outsized Role

The biggest indicator of success on a school’s test scores is the family wealth of its student population. General Academic calculated the weighted R-squared (R²) values between percent of students mastering the STAAR and the percentage of students who qualify for federal free and reduced lunch. R-Squared is a standard statistical measure to determine how predictable a dependent variable (STAAR scores) is simply by looking at the independent variable (family income).

In Texas, a family of four typically qualifies for a reduced price lunch when their household income is below $57,720 (185% above poverty level) or a free lunch when their household income is below $40,560 (130% above poverty). Among all the subject and grade levels we analyzed, elementary school reading showed the strongest relationship between poverty level and test mastery. Up to 94% of the variation in those reading scores can be predicted from the percentage of economically disadvantaged students:

• Elementary School Reading Mastery – .940 R² correlation
• Elementary School Math Mastery – .747
• Middle School Reading Mastery – .881
• Middle School Math Mastery – .837

This seemingly inextricable link between family income and academic results does change over time. Students’ scores in reading go up – the R-squared value falls from .940 at elementary school to .881 in middle school. However, student’s scores in math remain strongly linked to family income – the R-squared value even increases slightly from .747 to .837.

Top Spring Branch ISD Elementary Schools by STAAR “Masters” Scores

The best Spring Branch ISD elementary schools are SBAI, Wilchester, Memorial Drive, Rummel Creek, and Frostwood.  Since the STAAR is a peer-normed test in which only about 21% of students will earn the “Masters” designation, any school on this list with higher than 21% is performing better than average. There are at least 14 (56% of the district) SBISD elementary schools that are outperforming the Texas state average. Due to the Dual Language Program offered at Cedar Brook (11th), Pine Shadows (13th), and Sherwood (15th), you are able to apply to those schools outside of your zoned neighborhood campus. You will still have to secure a spot via lottery, but if your student is interested in a joint English-Spanish curriculum and their zoned school is a lower performer, this could be worthwhile.

The table below shows the percent of students scoring at the “Masters” level on the STAAR test in math, reading, and their combined average. Additionally, “Disadvantaged” indicates the percentage of enrollment that qualifies for a free or reduced lunch.

Top Spring Branch ISD Middle Schools by STAAR “Masters” Scores

The top 5 Spring Branch ISD middle schools are SBAI, Cornerstone Academy, Memorial Middle, Westchester, and Spring Branch Middle. These campuses and Spring Forest Middle make up the 6 middle schools (60% of the district) that are performing better than the Texas state average since more than 21% of their students are earning the “Masters” designation. Cornerstone, Westchester and Spring Forest are all schools that you can apply to even if you are not zoned to their location. Cornerstone and Westchester have a focus on advanced academics, while Spring Forest offers the Dual Language program. In either case, you’ll have to secure a spot at the school via lottery.

Spring Branch Academic Institute has dramatically topped the charts for both Elementary and Middle STAAR scores. While any student in the district could hypothetically attend this school, it isn’t a place you can easily transfer or apply to. In fact it isn’t necessarily a place at all; SBAI is a school-within-a-school that hosts its various students at Thornwood Elementary, Spring Forest Middle, and Stratford High School. They take core classes with SBAI teachers and electives with their regular campus teachers.

The school serves 150 students from K-12 that qualify as highly gifted via the district’s internal identification process while also demonstrating a composite score of 145+ on an IQ test. On top of those requirements, they only accept application at the Elementary level, so students must enter apply no later than their 4th grade year. Class sizes are not set at a consistent number, but there is a lottery in case applications exceed the available seats on any particular grade level. With all of that in mind, this top of the district school has phenomenal data coming from a very selective and limited sample of exceptional students. If your young child is highly gifted and you live in the Spring Branch district, you should consider taking advantage of this option.

The table below shows the percent of students scoring at the “Masters” level on the STAAR test in math, reading, and their combined average. Additionally, “Disadvantaged” indicates the percentage of enrollment that qualifies for a free or reduced lunch.

Comparing Spring Branch to Houston ISD

If you find yourself in a position where you need to compare the options between Spring Branch and the larger HISD, here are some key observations. SBISD serves just over 33,000 students while HISD has just shy of 177,000 students. In SBISD, 53.4% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, while in HISD, nearly 80% of students qualify.

Both districts possess a variety of campuses: high performing schools in wealthier neighborhoods, lower performing schools with primarily disadvantaged populations, and every where in between. Both districts boast several schools that perform at or above the state average for STAAR Mastery while having a strong majority of their popular on free or reduced lunches. Top schools in each district are extremely competitive with one another. The lowest schools in each district face similar struggles.

At the Elementary Level, ignoring GT Schools, HISD’s West University boasts a 78% average mastery, which eclipses SBISD’s Wilchester, Memorial Drive, and Rummel Creek that have average masteries in the lower 60% range while having comparable, single digit disadvantaged percent. At the Middle Level, ignoring GT Schools, SBISD’s Cornerstone Academy has a leading 70% average mastery over HISD middle schools, even when comparing to a similar “application only” lottery school like Pin Oak whose average mastery is at 50%.

The differences appear in the overall distribution for each district. SBISD has a higher proportion of their schools above the STAAR mastery state average:  56% of SBISD vs only 39% of HISD at the elementary level and 60% of SBISD vs only 37% of HISD at the middle level. Yet when looking at family economic levels across districts we see the smaller SBISD is made up of a larger proportion of higher income schools than HISD. 10 out of 24 SBISD elementary schools and 4 out of 10 SBISD middle schools have student populations with less than half disadvantaged families.  Only 18 of 153 HISD elementary schools and 9 of 54 HISD middle schools have under 50% of their population as disadvantaged.

On a percentage average, SBISD performs higher and has wealthier neighborhoods than HISD, but HISD has the quantity advantage. The amount of HISD schools that are performing above the state average nearly matches the total number—of all SBISD campuses.

Both districts offer application-based schools of choice, but HISD’s size allows it to offer more options. SBISD only has 2 academic based choice options and 6 dual language options across all grade levels. HISD has 128 magnet schools within their district with a broader variety of program focuses. The top choices within each district will still have availability issues, no matter how large or small their population. A lottery has to be used to distribute the limited available spots on each campus.

Read More about Houston-Area Schools from General Academic

• Houston ISD’s Best Elementary and Middle Schools by STAAR Scores
• Houston’s Top High Schools by SAT Scores
• Houston’s National Merit Semifinalists for 2025-2026

About the Data

This dataset was compiled from data pulled from TEA Assessment Research Portal, from the 2024-2025 school year, specifically the Spring 2025 STAAR data. The two data tables represent Grades 3-5 average performance for elementary schools, and Grades 6-8 average performance for middle schools. “Percent Mastery” scores for both Math and Reading represent the total number of students at a school who earned a performance level of “Mastery” in the respective STAAR 3-8 subject, divided by the total number of students at the same school who took the STAAR 3-8 exam for that subject. The “average mastery” column in the tables above is simply the average of the math and reading scores. The data regarding percentage of economically disadvantaged students comes from Children at Risk, and you can download their full spreadsheet here. For an interactive map of Houston-area school districts with schools, visit the TEA’s website.