The top reported proficiency rate is 21% in English language arts. The lowest is 13% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Nixon Elem School
Nixon Elementary School is a neighborhood school serving pre-K through sixth grade in the Hermosa neighborhood of Chicago on the Northwest Side. The school's enrollment is stable and small to mid-sized for its grade band, with the vast majority of students identifying as Hispanic and serving a highly concentrated student population from a single ethnic background.
Academic performance at Nixon is low across both tested subjects and grade levels. In math, proficiency ranges from a small share in third and fourth grades down to very few students reaching proficiency in fifth and sixth grades. English language arts shows a similar pattern, with roughly a quarter of third graders reaching proficiency but proficiency declining in the upper grades, particularly in sixth. Science proficiency in fifth grade is also low. The school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile of schools across Cook County districts. State testing data was reported for only those grade levels assessed; grades seven and eight show no test results because those grades are not enrolled at this elementary school.
The school enrolls students from pre-K through sixth grade, with a one-student exception in ninth grade whose presence in the data may reflect a data reporting artifact. Enrollment is distributed fairly evenly across the elementary grades, with smaller pre-K enrollment. The school's data sections do not report free-or-reduced-price-lunch counts or the percentage of students qualifying, so a reader cannot determine the economic profile of the student body from the enrollment information provided. English learner enrollment and special education enrollment counts are also not available in the data.
Nixon sits in Chicago on Keeler Avenue in a neighborhood within the city's larger Northwest Side residential geography. The area is part of Chicago's dense urban fabric, a city that has resumed population growth after a decade of decline and that spans numerous residential neighborhoods each with distinct character. The city is highly walkable, with extensive public transit through the CTA and Metra systems. Housing values in the school's zip code are moderate relative to the metro area; rental costs are in the mid-range for the Chicago market. The broader Cook County housing market shows steady supply and moderate demand pressure.
Chicago Public Schools, the parent district, is undergoing governance and curricular shifts that will shape the environment in which Nixon operates. The district is transitioning from a fully mayor-appointed school board to an elected body, with all seats to be elected in November 2026, giving parents direct democratic control over school policy for the first time. The district adopted a strategic plan in 2024 that emphasizes strengthening neighborhood schools and moving away from the school-choice model that has historically defined CPS, a priority shift that positions traditional neighborhood elementary schools like Nixon as a centerpiece of district strategy. The district also replaced its numeric school ratings with new holistic dashboards that assess schools beyond test scores alone, and all CPS schools now have access to Skyline, a comprehensive district-developed curriculum spanning multiple content areas at no school cost, available to any educator who chooses to use it.
Parents considering Nixon should understand that the school is operating within a district context that values neighborhood schools and has committed new resources to supporting them, but that proficiency rates across the school are substantially low. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what academic interventions or supports are in place, what the trajectory of student growth looks like, and what specific programming or staffing the school is deploying to raise achievement. The school serves a linguistically and ethnically concentrated student population; a family should ascertain whether bilingual or English-as-a-second-language programming is available and how the school approaches language development alongside academic instruction.
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