Cascade Middle School

Eugene, OR · Grades 6–8

Eugene-Springfield, OR

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

4 stars

OR statewide rating — the rank below is this school's statewide position

Middle 40% decoded

#226 of 680

plausibly #80–465

Oregon schools

#8 · Eugene-Springfield metro

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Bottom 30% achievement

#565 of 680

Oregon schools

#35 · Eugene-Springfield metro

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Scores look modest, yet students tend to gain ground relative to peers the longer they are enrolled.

Data confidence:Medium698 students tested 9 years93% participation

Confidence is computed from sample size, year coverage, and participation rate. Higher confidence means the rank shift is stable across years and not driven by a single small cohort.

  • Tested students: total students with valid scores across all reported years.
  • Years of data: number of school years included. More years smooths year-to-year noise.
  • Participation: share of enrolled students who took the assessment. Low participation can bias scores.

What's driving this rank

Decoded Rank: #226 of 680

in Oregon schools

Raw test scores rank this school #565, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #226.

Each component below is scored on a 0–100 within-metro scale. A qualitative band summarizes where the school lands.

  • Below averagePerforms above what its context predictsCounts for 39% of the rank

    After accounting for income and demographics, does this school beat what the data would predict?

  • Above averageStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 33% of the rank

    Are kids at this school learning faster than typical for the metro?

  • StrongEquity within the schoolCounts for 17% of the rank

    Are students clustered at similar levels, or split between top and bottom?

  • StrongMost students were testedCounts for 11% of the rank

    Was the rank computed against a representative share of the school's students?

Show the numbersFor the methodology-curious

Each component is converted to a 0–100 within-metro percentile (100 = top of the metro). "Contribution" is the percentile-points the component adds to (or subtracts from) the metro median before the schools are re-ranked into the composite.

Per-component contributions to this school's Decoded Rank composite. Weight is the share each component carries; percentile is the school's within-metro score on that component.
ComponentWeightPercentileContribution
Performs above what its context predicts 39%32-6.9
Students gain ground year over year 33%71+7.1
Equity within the school 17%95+7.5
Most students were tested 11%93+4.8

How the Decoded Rank composite is computed

Why trust this?
  • Public data sources
  • Context-adjusted model
  • Confidence shown
  • Methodology published

This score uses state assessment data, NCES enrollment data, and Census ACS 5-year neighborhood data. The Decoded Rank adjusts for school context — student demographics, ELL/SPED service rates, and the socioeconomic profile of the surrounding tract — and shows how the school performs relative to expectation, not in absolute terms.

SchoolDecoder is one signal, not a verdict. Decoded Rank is a context-adjusted residual, not a causal claim about teaching quality. See full methodology →

Strongest Subjects (Decoded)

Decoded rank first; achievement rank in parentheses. Sorted by decoded rank, best first. Science is shown for reference only and is not part of any rank, tier, or composite.

  1. Science

    2025 proficiency21.4%meeting standard

    Tested gradeGrade 8

    106 tested

    202213.3%202314.7%202415.7%202521.4%

    Shown for reference only — science is not part of any rank.

All Rankings

How this school ranks across the metro, state, and among demographic peers.

ScopeAchievementDecodedShift
OR (680 schools)#565#226
Eugene-Springfield, OR (41 schools)#35#8
Among similar schools (6 peers)#2#2

Resource context

School inputs, not ranking points

These fields describe the school and surrounding neighborhood. They help readers interpret the page, but this is not a dollar-by-dollar or ratio-by-ratio scorecard and the fields here are not components of the Decoded Rank.

Enrollment
375
Free/reduced-price lunch
90.9%
Student-teacher ratio
18.8:1
Locale
City, midsize
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$66,890ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
13.3%ACS tract proxy
SES index
27.4
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Bethel SD 52: #2 of 5.Top-40% in district. View district

Performance Spread

How students are distributed across the four state-assessment proficiency levels — L1: below standard, L2: approaching, L3: meets (proficient), L4: exceeds. This describes the shape of results at the school, not their height.

Students at this school cluster closely on the proficiency ladder.

  • Level 1 — Below standard51%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard28%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)17%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard4%

Performance Spread measures how evenly students are distributed across the L1..L4 proficiency ladder, treating the levels as an ordered scale (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4) and weighting each by its student share. A school where most students cluster at one level has a TIGHT spread; a school split between the bottom and top has a WIDE or BIMODAL spread. Bimodal fires only when BOTH tails are non-trivial AND the middle is relatively hollow (pct_L1 ≥ 15, pct_L4 ≥ 25, pct_L2 + pct_L3 ≤ 60). It describes shape — NOT how high the school's scores are. Methodology

Nearby Schools

Sorted by distance. Both rank columns shown so you can compare quickly.

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Willamette High SchoolRanking unavailable
Malabon Elementary School#36#32Medium
Clear Lake Elementary SchoolRankings coming soon
Shasta Middle School—#38Est. #29Low
Danebo Elementary School#32#14Medium

Similar Schools

Schools with comparable demographics, income, and size. Both rank columns shown for direct comparison.

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Rogue River Elementary SchoolRankings coming soon
Fleming Middle SchoolRankings coming soon
Lorna Byrne Middle SchoolRankings coming soon
Crater Lake AcademyRanking unavailable
Fairfield Elementary School#14#4High

Historical Ranks

Year-by-year decoded and achievement ranks. Pandemic-affected years are excluded — we don't interpolate scores across the gap.

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#35#8
2024#33#15
2023#40#12

Note: assessment transitions (where a state changes its test) are footnoted on the methodology page; trends are not computed across breakpoints.

Trajectory

Not used in the Decoded Rank — shown for context only.

No clear trend

The year-to-year data is too variable to support a trend in either direction.

How this works: we fit a linear trend across the available years of Decoded percentile, then bucket the slope into a direction. Wide confidence intervals (uncertain trends) collapse to Holding steady. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Cohort Progression

Kids who started 6th grade here in 2024 gained 20 proficiency points by 7th grade — gaining while the typical metro school declined.

Based on 18 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: +3.7 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -2.5 to 9.8)

Medium confidence

Cohort 201520162017201820192022202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
236
—
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
249
G8
257
+7.6
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
212
G7
246
G8
258
+22.8
ELA · started 6th in 2016
G6
251
G7
264
G8
265
+7.0
ELA · started 6th in 2017
G6
266
G7
243
G8
263
-1.4
ELA · started 6th in 2018
G6
247
G7
248
+1.2
ELA · started 6th in 2019
G6
241
—
ELA · started 8th in 2022
G8
209
—
ELA · started 7th in 2022
G7
188
G8
204
+15.8
ELA · started 6th in 2022
G6
155
G7
175
G8
177
+10.7
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
176
G7
201
G8
206
+14.9
ELA · started 6th in 2024
G6
164
G7
184
+19.7
ELA · started 6th in 2025
G6
187
—
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
198
—
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
221
G8
177
-44.0
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
205
G7
211
G8
205
+0.1
Math · started 6th in 2016
G6
213
G7
222
G8
248
+17.6
Math · started 6th in 2017
G6
261
G7
231
G8
240
-10.4
Math · started 6th in 2018
G6
226
G7
219
-6.4
Math · started 6th in 2019
G6
197
—
Math · started 8th in 2022
G8
148
—
Math · started 7th in 2022
G7
154
G8
149
-5.0
Math · started 6th in 2022
G6
—
G7
142
G8
145
+2.5
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
163
G7
154
G8
173
+5.3
Math · started 6th in 2024
G6
149
G7
135
-14.0
Math · started 6th in 2025
G6
169
—

How this works: we follow each grade-cohort across years through the school (3rd graders in 2023 are 4th graders in 2024, etc.) and fit a linear slope on a 100–400 proficiency-points scale built from the state assessment's four levels (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4, weighted by student share). This is the same construction Stanford SEDA uses (edopportunity.org/methods); it's not student-level tracking — we measure the school's cohort, not individuals. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Evidence & technical detailClick to expand

School Alpha

School Alpha is the residual between actual and expected performance once school context is held constant. It is a context-adjusted estimate, not a causal claim about teaching quality. Its reliability shows up on the page as the confidence label and the rank interval, not as a standalone statistic.

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
27.4
FRL %
90.9%
ELL %
19.0% · OR ODE At-A-Glance (Ever English Learners)
SPED %
22.0% · OR ODE At-A-Glance
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$66,890
Tract poverty rate
13.3%
Tract % bachelor's+
17.5%

What "Decoded Rank" means

Decoded Rank converts School Alpha — the context-adjusted residual — into a parent-facing rank within the metro pool. A higher Decoded Rank than Achievement Rank means the school's raw scores understate its performance once neighborhood and school context are held constant. The reverse means raw scores overstate it. The rank is one signal, not a verdict.

Data & sources

Assessment data
2024–25 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2024
Census ACS 5-year vintage
2020-2024
Last updated
September 4, 2026
Methodology version
0.14.0
Source files (3)

SchoolDecoder publishes context-adjusted residuals, not causal estimates. Decoded Rank is one signal — not a verdict on teaching quality. Read about limitations →