The top reported proficiency rate is 45% in English language arts. The lowest is 33% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Madison School
Madison School is a public elementary school in South Holland, Illinois, serving grades four and five. It sits in a mature, single-family residential suburb south of Chicago shaped by Dutch-American heritage and zoning rules that have kept it dominated by houses rather than apartments. The village is car-dependent, organized around Interstate access and the 162nd Street commercial corridor rather than walkable neighborhood centers. Major employers include a large meatpacking plant and a Union Pacific freight yard, with retail, manufacturing, and logistics work available to residents. The housing stock is made up primarily of bungalows, ranches, and split-levels; recent village strategy focuses on rehabbing and reselling existing single-family homes rather than large new development.
Madison enrolls a modest enrollment for its grade band, with roughly equal cohorts in each grade. The student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial Hispanic population and very few white or Asian students; detailed free-or-reduced-price-lunch and English learner enrollment counts are not available in the publicly reported data. Attendance and discipline data were also not available.
On the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) administered in spring 2025, Madison's performance in math and English language arts fell below the midpoint among districts across Cook County. In fourth-grade math, roughly one-third of students tested at proficiency (Levels 3 or 4); in fifth-grade math, the rate was similar. English language arts proficiency was somewhat higher in fifth grade at about one-half, but fourth-grade ELA proficiency was under 40 percent. In science, assessed only in grade five via the Illinois Science Assessment, about one-third of students met proficiency. Participation rates in both math and ELA were very high, approaching or reaching 100 percent, suggesting these results reflect actual performance rather than missing test-takers.
State assessment cut scores changed for the 2024-25 school year, so year-over-year trend comparisons are not safe to compute. Third-grade results were not reported, likely because the school serves only grades four and five. No data on chronic absenteeism, graduation rate, or AP and dual-credit offerings appeared—not applicable to this elementary school.
South Holland SD 151 has not undergone major curriculum overhauls, referenda, or property-tax shifts in the recent period based on available public reporting. A parent may want to reach out to the school directly to discuss academic support and intervention strategies, given the current proficiency levels, and to ask about classroom composition and any special programs or pathways within the elementary grades.
The surrounding community is stable and family-oriented, though experiencing modest population decline. Home values in the zip code are moderate for the Cook County market. The village's comprehensive plan, updated in 2018, committed to reinvestment in existing housing stock rather than speculative growth, a posture consistent with the school's role as a neighborhood institution serving a mature, built-out suburb.
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