The top reported proficiency rate is 33% in English language arts. The lowest is 13% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Robinson Elem School
Robinson Elementary serves students in pre-kindergarten through third grade on the South Side of Chicago. The school enrolls a small student body, drawn almost entirely from the immediate neighborhood: the vast majority of students are Black, with a small number of Hispanic students and very few students from other backgrounds. The school's address on South Lake Park Avenue places it in a lakefront-adjacent residential area.
State assessment data for Robinson is limited in scope. Third grade students took the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) in 2024-25, the only grade in the school's band for which results are available. In English language arts, third graders achieved a below-midpoint proficiency rate. In math, the proficiency rate was substantially lower, in the bottom tier among schools tested across Cook County. Full-grade enrollment data and free-or-reduced-price-lunch counts are not publicly available for the school, nor are counts of students with IEPs or those learning English as an additional language. State data from earlier years was not provided, so trend information is absent.
The school operates within Chicago Public Schools District 299, which serves the entire city and sits within a significant moment of change. As of November 2024, the district transitioned from a fully mayor-appointed board to a hybrid board of ten elected and eleven appointed members; all 21 seats will be elected in November 2026. This governance shift gives parents a direct vote on school board membership for the first time in decades. The district adopted a strategic plan in 2024 called "Together We Rise" that emphasizes strengthening neighborhood schools and moving away from the school-choice model that has historically shaped enrollment patterns across CPS. In December 2024, the district replaced its longtime numeric school ratings with new holistic accountability dashboards, changing how parents compare schools. The district has also rolled out Skyline, a comprehensive PreK-12 curriculum in six content areas that is available to all district-managed schools at no school-level cost, establishing curricular consistency across hundreds of previously independent schools.
Chicago itself is a large, dense city of more than 77 neighborhoods with a strong downtown anchored by the Loop and Near North Side, extensive public transit, and one of the nation's largest park systems. The city has resumed population growth after a period of decline and has been approving substantial new housing in recent years, with recent construction concentrated downtown and along the North Lakefront. Housing values in the school's zip code are below the Illinois state median and below the national median. Monthly rental costs are moderate. The local market shows broad housing inventory with slight year-over-year price movement and stable rent growth.
A parent may want to look into current enrollment practices, the school's approach to early literacy and numeracy instruction, and available support services with the school directly, since the publicly available data does not fully characterize the school's programs or the academic pathways it offers to its youngest learners.
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