The top reported proficiency rate is 19% in Math. The lowest is 13% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Lew Wallace Elementary School
Lew Wallace Elementary School is a regular public school in the School City of Hammond, serving students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. It sits within Hammond, a Rust Belt city that borders Chicago directly along Lake Michigan and has a long industrial history as a meatpacking and manufacturing center. Today the city’s economy is somewhat more diversified than nearby Gary or East Chicago, with light manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, retail, healthcare, hospitality, and food service all playing roles. The city’s population peaked decades ago and has declined steadily since, reflecting broader deindustrialization, though the decline has been less severe than in some neighboring cities. Hammond is traversed by numerous railroads and expressways, including the Borman Expressway and the South Shore Line commuter rail, which connects to Chicago. The built environment mixes older grid-based residential historic districts with industrial corridors, rail yards, and wide arterial roads.
The school enrolls a moderate number of students overall for its grade band. The student body is predominantly Black and Hispanic, with a small share of white students and a handful of students who identify as two or more races. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting a community where household incomes are modest relative to national benchmarks. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not reported in the available data, so it is not possible to speak to the school’s special education or language support context from the information at hand.
On Indiana’s ILEARN state assessments, the share of Lew Wallace students scoring at or above the proficient level was low in every tested subject. In both math and English language arts, the proportion of students meeting the state’s proficiency benchmarks was modest, and performance was lower in science and social studies. The school’s overall proficiency index, which combines results across all tested subjects and grades, places it below the midpoint when compared with other Lake County districts. These are the latest results publicly reported. Because the school serves only elementary grades, there is no high school graduation rate to consider, and the state does not administer these tests to students below third grade, so the picture is limited to the upper elementary years.
Housing in the immediate area around the school is relatively affordable compared with national medians. Home values and rents in the zip code are below the national benchmark, though both have seen modest year-over-year increases in the recent period. The estimated monthly cost of owning a median-priced home is lower than the cost of renting a similar property, a pattern that may be relevant for families weighing homeownership in the neighborhood.
The district brief turned up little in the way of recent structural changes or initiatives that would alter the school’s day-to-day operation. The school itself has no special designations such as charter or magnet status, and no specific program offerings were reported in the data reviewed.
For a family considering this school, the most direct takeaway is that academic proficiency rates are low by statewide and countywide standards. That is a straightforward fact of the available test results. A parent may want to follow up with the school or district to understand what steps are being taken to support student learning, what tutoring or intervention programs are in place, and how the school approaches curriculum and instruction. The surrounding city offers some amenities—Wolf Lake parkland, the South Shore Line for Chicago commutes, a traditional downtown core, and the presence of Purdue University Northwest—but also carries the character of a post-industrial city with a declining population and a heavily auto-oriented layout outside of historic neighborhoods.
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