By admin 
Columbia-area middle school students showed marked gains on standardized assessments this past year, especially in mathematics.
Read more Another piece of public art could join Dawn Staley statue in the Columbia Vista
Virtually all Richland and Lexington County school districts increased their percentage of middle school students who met or exceeded expectations in both English language arts and math on the 2025-26 SC READY test, according to data released by the South Carolina Department of Education.
Two local districts — Lexington 3 and Lexington 4 — improved by double-digit percentages in English language arts and all but one district achieved at least 16% gains in math.
More than a dozen Columbia-area middle schools beat the state average in either English language arts or math and several ranked among the top-performing middle schools in the state.
The State analyzed the data to determine which middle schools in Richland and Lexington counties were the top performers, as measured by the percentage of students who met or exceeded expectations in English language arts and math.
For the purposes of this article, schools that served at least one middle grade and ranked in the top 20% locally in student proficiency for either subject area were considered top performers.
Top English language arts performers
Gray Collegiate Academy, a K-12 charter school known for its superb athletics, flexed its muscles as an academic force in this past year’s state assessments.
Middle school students at the West Columbia charter, authorized by the Charter Institute at Erskine, outperformed middle schoolers in traditional districts by a significant margin in English language arts.
Read more Honda keeps skipping the hybrid its buyers are asking for
After Gray, a quartet of Lexington 1 schools rounded out the top five performing middle schools in the subject area.
More than three-quarters of tested students at Lakeside, Beechwood, Pleasant Hill and Meadow Glen middle schools in Lexington met or exceeded expectations in English language arts on last year’s state assessments, data shows.
Top math performers
Middle school students at Gray Collegiate also outscored their peers on the math portion of the state assessment, data shows.
Chapin Intermediate School, which serves grades 5 and 6, ranked second in math proficiency, while Chapin Middle School, which serves the area’s 7th and 8th graders, came in fifth.
The same collection of Lexington 1 middle schools that scored well in English language arts filled in around the Chapin schools.
Two Richland County schools — Crayton Middle School in Forest Acres and Blythewood Middle School in Blythewood — rounded out the top math performers list.
Read more Iran warns vessels violating Hormuz transit rules of fines, detention