The top reported proficiency rate is 52% in English language arts. The lowest is 37% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Lincoln-douglas Elementary School
Lincoln-Douglas Elementary School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Quincy, Illinois, as a regular public school in Quincy School District 172. The school enrolls a student population of roughly six hundred, distributed evenly across its grade levels.
The academic picture shows mixed results. In English language arts, third graders posted around half proficient or above, while fourth and fifth graders performed better, with just over half of each grade meeting proficiency standards. Math proficiency is lower across the board: third grade at roughly half proficient, fourth grade considerably lower at around two-fifths, and fifth grade dropping further to roughly three-tenths proficient. In fifth-grade science, about three-tenths of students reached proficiency. These numbers reflect an underlying reality: the school's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint among the eight districts in Adams County, but within that county position, the absolute levels show meaningful gaps in math achievement that a parent would want to understand more deeply. The school uses participation rates at full capacity and has no missing data on tested populations.
The school's student composition is predominantly white, with smaller populations of students identifying as two or more races, Black, Asian, and Hispanic students. The school's six hundred students and relatively stable enrollment across grades suggest steady demand from the surrounding residential areas of Quincy. Free-and-reduced-price lunch data and special education enrollment numbers were not available.
In the district context, Quincy SD 172 undertook a significant instructional change for the 2024-25 school year, adopting new K-5 literacy and math curriculum district-wide. Lincoln-Douglas, like all five elementary schools in the district, now uses Benchmark Workshop for reading and Reveal Math for mathematics, replacing prior materials and instructional approaches. This shift changes how all students in the school learn to read and calculate, a change that affects every classroom and that families often care about when evaluating their school. The district's property tax rate has trended downward below what voters approved in prior referendums, a stability that affects household school taxes.
Quincy itself is a small Mississippi River city in west-central Illinois with a revitalized downtown ('The District'), historic neighborhoods, and active retail and housing development. The housing market is tight, with median home values in the area above the national benchmark and a short supply of homes for sale. Rents remain more affordable relative to income than mortgages. The city's major employers anchor the local economy around healthcare (Blessing Hospital), manufacturing, grocery retail, and public institutions. Public transit runs through the downtown, and the city offers parks and pedestrian amenities centered near the river and historic core.
A parent visiting Lincoln-Douglas would find an established neighborhood elementary school with solid enrollment and a community context of modest growth and investment. The academic results show stronger literacy gains than math gains, with the most notable softness in math at fifth grade. The district's new curriculum adoption means this school is in a transition phase in how it teaches reading and math, and a parent may want to look into how that implementation is progressing with the school directly.
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