Webb vs Murchison Middle: F vs B in Austin ISD (2026)

Two Austin ISD Middle Schools, One District, Almost $250K Apart

Murchison Middle School earned a B with an 88 on the 2025 TEA accountability rating. Webb Middle School earned an F with a 59 (TEA 2025 A-F Accountability). Both campuses sit inside Austin ISD, but the housing markets around them are not in the same universe. The 12 month median sale price for a single family home zoned to Murchison is $644,000 across 519 closings. The Webb zone median is $398,255 across 140 closings. That is a $245,745 gap inside the same district.

So if you are a buyer trying to make sense of how two schools two zip codes apart can look this different on paper, you are not alone. Lets walk through what the data actually says, what it does not say, and where the school report card stops being the whole story.

Webb vs Murchison: Quick Comparison

TEA School Performance Comparison (2025)

The Texas Education Agency grades public schools across three accountability domains: Student Achievement, School Progress, and Closing the Gaps. School Progress itself breaks into two parts, Academic Growth and Relative Performance, and TEA reports the better of those two. Most school report cards published online list all of those line items separately, which is why you sometimes see what looks like four or five “domains.” It is really three.

Student Achievement is the biggest gap, 39 points (50 vs 89). The one area where Webb shows relative strength is Closing the Gaps at 70, a C, which means the campus is actually moving the needle for the student groups TEA tracks even while the overall rating sits at an F. That is worth knowing if you only read the headline letter grade. As for distinctions, F-rated campuses like Webb are not eligible to receive them at all. Middle schools can earn a maximum of 7 (ELA/Reading, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Academic Growth, Postsecondary Readiness, Closing the Gaps), and for the verified Murchison count, the official TEA school report card is the place to confirm rather than my database.

For the full TEA breakdown on each campus, including rating history back to 2019, visit the Webb Middle School page or the Murchison Middle School page.

Murchison: Northwest Austin’s Anchor Middle School

Murchison serves 1,209 students out of a campus in the Anderson Mill and Balcones Woods corridor, which is one of the most established residential pockets in northwest Austin. The school has built a long-standing reputation in Austin ISD for its fine arts programs (band, orchestra, choir, theater) and its Gifted and Talented coursework, and the campus consistently scores in the B range across the board on TEA accountability ratings going back to 2019.

The Murchison feeder is one of the cleanest pathways in Austin ISD. Students typically arrive from Anderson Mill Elementary, Laurel Mountain Elementary, or Pond Springs Elementary, do their middle school years at Murchison, and continue to Anderson High School, which runs an International Baccalaureate program and is one of AISD’s flagship comprehensive high schools. From kindergarten to senior year you can plan the whole arc on a single map, which is a real luxury inside a district as sprawling as Austin ISD.

The $644,000 median reflects what you would expect: mature trees, established blocks, and the kind of walkable suburban feel that has held its value through every Austin boom and pullback going back 30 years.

Webb: An F-Rated Campus in a Rapidly Changing North Austin Zone

Webb serves 502 students in north central and northeast Austin, with an attendance zone that pulls from neighborhoods along Airport Boulevard, North Loop, and the corridors running east toward Cameron Road. The 2025 F at 59 is the result of an F across Student Achievement, School Progress, and Academic Growth, with a C in Closing the Gaps. The campus serves a student body that is 98% economically disadvantaged and 78.5% English Learners, which is a fundamentally different instructional challenge than what Murchison’s staff is working with.

The Webb feeder pattern is worth understanding clearly because it gets misreported a lot. Webb pulls from a wide collection of elementary campuses including Andrews, Barrington, Blanton, Brown, Bryker Woods, Pickle, Reilly, Ridgetop, Winn, and Zilker. The zoned high school options out of Webb include McCallum High School (well known for its fine arts academy), Lyndon B Johnson High School, and Travis High School. Webb graduates can also apply, district-wide, to programs like the Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA), Navarro Early College, and Northeast Early College. Those last two are application based, not automatic, which is an important distinction for any buyer who has been told otherwise.

The Neighborhoods

Murchison draws from Anderson Mill, Balcones Woods, Balcones Village, Jollyville, and Great Hills. Big mature lots, the Anderson Mill Metropolitan Park, easy access to Loop 360 and the Domain, and a tech corridor commute that is among the more manageable in the metro. The $644,000 median is the price of admission, but the housing stock ranges from 1980s ranch homes that need a kitchen update to fully renovated two stories that show up move-in ready.

The Webb zone covers a wide swath of north and northeast Austin including St Johns College, Dean Terrace, Georgian Acres, University Hills, Silverton Heights, and Windsor Park. The $398,255 median is roughly 38% lower than Murchison, and the housing here is a mix of original mid-century stock, infill new builds, and renovated bungalows. Several of these neighborhoods have changed dramatically in the last 10 years and the trajectory is not done.

Browse all homes zoned to Webb Middle or homes zoned to Murchison Middle.

Which School Fits You?

Two campuses, two very different decisions. Here is how I think about it.

You might lean toward Murchison if:

• You want a B-rated campus with strong scores across all three TEA accountability domains
• The clean K-12 pathway through Anderson High School and its IB program matters to you
• The fine arts and GT programming are a draw for your student
• The $644,000 median is workable inside your housing budget

You might lean toward Webb if:

• The $245K savings vs the Murchison zone changes what you can buy
• You are comfortable evaluating the school by its Closing the Gaps performance (C) and supplementing where needed
• Application-based pathways like LASA or the early college programs are something you plan to pursue actively

Here is the honest take. If you can afford the Murchison zone and a middle school report card is high on your list, the data supports that choice without much asterisk. If your budget puts Webb back on the table, do not treat the F as the end of the conversation. Look at the Closing the Gaps score, look at what Anderson Mill style parents would actually do inside a Webb feeder situation, and consider how application-based programs might fit. That is not that hard right. It just takes someone walking the zones with you.

Ready to Find Your Home?

Austin ISD has some of the widest school performance gaps in the metro, and the housing market reflects them. Understanding what you are buying into, the school, the feeder, the trajectory of the neighborhood, all of it, is exactly what 19+ years of doing this in Austin lets me help with. Lets grab coffee and walk through it.

Schedule a Consultation

Be safe, be good, and be nice to people.