The top reported proficiency rate is 79% in English language arts. The lowest is 42% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Passow Elementary School
Passow Elementary serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in Franklin Park, a working-class village on Chicago's west side shaped by freight rail, industrial zones, and midcentury housing. The school sits in a mature community where the economy turns on manufacturing, logistics, and proximity to O'Hare, and where residential blocks mix with extensive commercial and industrial areas. Franklin Park's population is roughly flat. Housing is more affordable than Chicago proper, with median home values and rents substantially lower than state and national benchmarks.
The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with white students forming a much smaller share and Asian students represented in single digits. The school enrollment is relatively modest for its grade band. Free-and-reduced-price-lunch data was not reported, so a reader cannot see what share of students qualify for that support. Data on special education and English learner enrollment were also not available.
In state testing from the most recent school year, Passow shows uneven academic performance. Third-grade math proficiency was strong, with most students meeting or exceeding state benchmarks. Fourth and fifth grade math results drop substantially, hovering around the midpoint. English language arts performance in third and fifth grades sits around three-quarters of students proficient, while fourth grade outperforms both at a higher level. Science results, reported only for fifth grade, show less than half the students meeting state standards. The school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile among Cook County districts, a meaningful strength; the comparison reflects performance across tested subjects and grades. No multi-year trend data were available, so it is not clear whether performance has moved in recent years or whether these results represent a change from prior patterns.
The school participates fully in state testing, with participation rates at or near complete in the grades and subjects tested. Proficiency benchmarks on Illinois assessments shifted this year, making direct year-over-year comparison unreliable, so apparent trajectories in individual grades should be treated with caution.
Passow is a regular public school with no magnet or charter designation. It serves the full age range for elementary education in the district. A parent may want to look into the school's approaches to math support in grades four and five, and into how science instruction connects to the testing and curriculum more broadly. District-wide changes or curriculum initiatives were not found in available public sources, so a reader seeking context for instructional priorities should ask the school directly.
Franklin Park itself is auto-oriented but has two Metra stations anchoring a small downtown on Franklin and Rose Avenues, plus Pace bus service. The community is pursuing pedestrian and bicycle improvements, including planned multi-use paths and bike lanes to connect the stations and transit routes to school sites and industrial areas. Housing is mature, with a stock of bungalows and Cape Cods, and the resale market is active. Property values have ticked upward modestly year over year, and the affordability ratio—the gap between renting and a mortgage payment—is relatively tight at just over a fifth of income. The village's civic anchors include a park district operating parks and facilities, a public library with Spanish and Polish collections, and frequent freight rail traffic that shapes the soundscape of the neighborhood.
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