Summary:
DeKalb, Illinois, has nine schools—six elementary, two middle and one high school—serving students from elementary through high school. In 2025–2026, elementary schools averaged 35% in IAR English language arts (ELA) and 26% in math, compared with state results of 56% and 40%; middle-school averages were 32% in ELA and 19% in math. The high school’s grade 11 ACT results were also below state results in all three subjects. The most important finding is how widely elementary results vary: scores ranged from 16% to 53% in ELA and from 9% to 54% in math.
Jefferson Elementary School stands out as the strongest elementary school overall, leading in ELA at 53%, math at 54% and grade 5 science at 51%; it was above the state in math but 3 points below in ELA. Lincoln Elementary School ranked second in elementary ELA at 45%, while Littlejohn Elementary School was second in grade 5 science at 49%. At the other end, Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School had the lowest elementary ELA and math results, at 16% and 9%. The middle schools were nearly tied in ELA: Clinton Rosette Middle School scored 32.3% and Huntley Middle School 32.1%; Huntley led in math, 21% to 18%.
Results improved on average from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, though not at every school: elementary ELA rose 9 points and math 3 points, while middle-school ELA rose 12 points and math 4 points. Grade 5 science improved at all six elementary schools, with the average rising 20 points, compared with a 7-point state increase. Lincoln gained 21 points in ELA, while Brooks’s ELA and math scores declined. SchoolDigger ranked Jefferson at the 53rd percentile and Brooks at the 6th percentile in 2025–2026; Lincoln and Tyler Elementary School moved up in percentile from the prior year. As context, the 2024–2025 free/reduced lunch eligible share ranged from 57% at Jefferson to 80% at Brooks, and Jefferson had an 11.1 student-teacher ratio. These differences describe school characteristics but do not explain why scores differ.
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