The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in English language arts. The lowest is 37% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Lincoln Elementary School
Lincoln Elementary School serves a diverse community of roughly five hundred students in Hoffman Estates, a northwest Chicago suburb that is mid-redevelopment. The school teaches pre-kindergarten through sixth grade and feeds into the expanded 6–8 middle school model that School District U-46 is rolling out across the region, starting in 2025–26.
The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with substantial Asian, white, and Black populations. The school's enrollment is well-distributed across early grades, with smaller populations in the upper elementary years, which is typical for a school serving this grade band and this part of the district.
Academic performance reflects mixed results. In English language arts, fourth graders perform considerably better than their neighbors in both earlier and later elementary grades, reaching solid proficiency, while third graders and fifth-graders show substantially weaker results. Mathematics tells a similar story: fourth grade performance stands out as stronger, while third grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade all fall into lower ranges. Science testing in fifth grade, the only science assessment given at the school, shows proficiency below the middle of the county's comparison set. When the school's proficiency data is averaged across all tested subjects and grades, Lincoln falls below the midpoint of districts across Cook County, suggesting academic performance at this school warrants attention. A parent may want to look further into what approaches the school is using to support all learners, what resources are available for students working below grade level, and how the school plans to build on stronger fourth-grade outcomes.
Assessment scoring rules changed between recent years in Illinois, so trend analysis is not possible from the data available. The school tests all or nearly all students present, indicating no participation concerns.
The school is part of a district undergoing major investment. In April 2023, voters approved a substantial bond measure with no tax rate increase, funding rebuilds of five aging elementary schools including Century Oaks, McKinley, and Lowrie in Elgin, Parkwood in Hanover Park, and Glenbrook in Streamwood. Lincoln Elementary itself does not appear in the announced rebuild list. Simultaneously, the district is opening its first new middle schools in decades. Hawk Hollow Middle School in Bartlett opened for 2025–26, and Legacy Middle School in Elgin is set to open in 2027. Along with these infrastructure changes, all elementary schools in the district extended their instructional day at the start of the 2025–26 school year, and the district is piloting new math and literacy curricula. These changes touch every family and reshape how much time students spend in school and what instructional materials they encounter.
Hoffman Estates itself is experiencing rapid mixed-use redevelopment. The Sears headquarters campus, a large employment anchor for decades, has been demolished and is being converted to hyperscale data centers representing major capital investment and construction activity nearby. Housing growth is also accelerating, with new apartment and townhome projects approved and recently completed or under construction. The median home value in the 60192 zip code is in the mid-range for the county, and the affordability index suggests the area is moderately accessible to families with typical regional household income. The community is car-oriented and dispersed; there is no traditional downtown walkable core, but residents have access to forest preserves, parks, and the Pace bus system, including express routes to the CTA. St. Alexius Medical Center and the Prairie Stone Business Park are major local anchors.
Families considering Lincoln should weigh the school's below-midpoint academic performance against the district's significant recent capital and curricular investments, the extended school day now in effect, and the school's location in a growing community with housing availability and ongoing infrastructure change.
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