The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in English language arts. The lowest is 30% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Lincoln Elem School
Lincoln Elem School is a regular public school serving grades three through five in Pana, a small central Illinois city with a long, quiet history. The school sits in the middle of Christian County and is part of Pana CUSD 8, a unified district that recently underwent a substantial physical change: as of the 2024-2025 school year, Lincoln closed in its original building and merged with the former Washington Elementary (which served pre-K through grade two) into a single new facility that opened on the district's junior/senior high campus. That combined school, now called Pana Elementary, replaced two century-old buildings with a modern structure built to contemporary standards, including designated STEM, art, and music spaces, age-tiered playgrounds, and dedicated bus infrastructure. For families, the shift means elementary students now attend school in a unified PK-5 building rather than separated by grade band.
The school's enrollment is small, with a total of roughly two hundred students distributed across the three tested grades (third, fourth, and fifth). The student body is predominantly white, with a handful of students from other backgrounds. Data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility was not available, so information about economic diversity or family income levels cannot be drawn from the provided sources.
State testing results from the 2024-2025 school year show proficiency rates that decline as grade level climbs. In third-grade mathematics, proficiency sits above the midpoint for its county peer group; in fourth grade it drops substantially, and by fifth grade it falls further still. English-language arts follows a similar downward trend across grades, though starting lower in third grade. Fifth-grade science proficiency also comes in at the lower end of the range. The overall proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades places the school above the midpoint among the eight districts in Christian County, but the trajectory within grades raises a clear pattern: younger students perform better, and performance erodes as students move through the upper elementary years. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand how the district addresses skill gaps in the older grades or what supplemental supports exist for students working below proficiency in fourth and fifth grade.
Pana itself is a declining small city built historically on coal mining and railroads, later known for greenhouse roses. The town retains a compact downtown with Italianate storefronts and tree-lined residential streets of older homes, but street life is modest and event-driven rather than continuous. Most employment is in manufacturing, healthcare, education, retail, and hospitality; major employers include the hospital, the school district, and local manufacturers. The housing stock is predominantly older single-family homes, with median home values modest by national standards and estimated monthly mortgage costs well below national benchmarks. The local economy has stabilized around agribusiness and light manufacturing, though the city's population has declined steadily over decades. Civic life centers on Kitchell Park, a forty-acre historic facility with playgrounds, athletic fields, a swimming pool, and event space, and the Carnegie-Schuyler Library. Daily travel is car-dependent, as no fixed-route public transit was identified.
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