Carter Elem School, Chicago IL - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Carter Elem School

Carter Elementary School serves grades PreK through 8 in Chicago's South Side, on Michigan Avenue in the 60637 zip code. The school is small, with roughly the same enrollment for the district-wide profile. The student body is predominantly Black, with a small number of Hispanic and Asian students and no white enrollment. Enrollment is distributed across all grades, with slightly fewer students in the upper elementary and middle school bands.

State testing data from the most recent school year shows performance well below proficiency across all tested grades and subjects. In mathematics, the proficiency rate across grades 3 through 8 ranges from single digits to low double digits, with the highest measured result in fifth grade. English language arts proficiency is similarly low in the primary grades, though it improves modestly in the upper middle school grades, where eighth-grade students showed a result more than twice the rate of fourth graders. Science proficiency, measured only in fifth and eighth grades, was below one in five students in fifth grade and zero in eighth grade. These numbers position Carter among the lowest-performing schools in Cook County based on the proficiency index.

Test participation was consistently high across grades and subjects, with most grades showing full enrollment in assessments. A parent considering this school should note that the performance data reflects significant academic challenges across reading, math, and science. Illinois changed its proficiency benchmarks in the assessment itself in the year these results were collected, so direct year-to-year comparison is not possible from the data available.

Chicago is resuming population growth and approving housing at higher rates, with recent development concentrated downtown and along the North Lakefront. The median home value in the 60637 zip is in the low hundreds of thousands, and median rent is under two thousand dollars monthly, making the area more affordable than many neighborhoods. The city has extensive public transit via the CTA, Chicago Park District parks and beaches, and a strong walkable downtown anchored by the Loop and Near North Side. Civic life is supported by public libraries, parks with lakefront access, and diverse employment across finance, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, and public service.

The district itself is undergoing structural change. An elected school board is replacing the long-standing mayor-appointed model, with the first ten members elected in November 2024 and a full election of all seats scheduled for November 2026. The district has signaled a shift in its strategic plan away from school-choice enrollment policies and toward strengthening neighborhood schools. It has also deployed a new universal curriculum called Skyline across all subjects and grades, which standardizes instructional materials across the district's schools. The district replaced numeric school ratings with new accountability dashboards in late 2024 that look beyond test scores to broader school experience and resources.

Carter Elementary sits within this larger context of district change and operates in a neighborhood with real affordability advantages. The academic data, however, reflects persistent proficiency gaps that a prospective family should explore directly with school staff and examine against their own child's needs and the support available at home.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 35%

School 5% · District 38% · ▼ 33 pts below district

▼ 41 pts below state median · ▼ 34 pts below county median

Grade 46%

School 6% · District 29% · ▼ 23 pts below district

▼ 31 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 517%

School 17% · District 24% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 64%

School 4% · District 23% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 711%

School 11% · District 27% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 83%

School 3% · District 23% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 35%

School 5% · District 36% · ▼ 31 pts below district

▼ 39 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

Grade 43%

School 3% · District 39% · ▼ 36 pts below district

▼ 45 pts below state median · ▼ 37 pts below county median

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 43% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 627%

School 27% · District 45% · ▼ 18 pts below district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 722%

School 22% · District 46% · ▼ 24 pts below district

▼ 29 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 836%

School 36% · District 48% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Science

Grade 521%

School 21% · District 29% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 31% · ▼ 31 pts below district

▼ 40 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

This schoolChicago Public Schools Dist 299, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.