Summary:
Kankakee, Illinois, has 10 schools—seven elementary, two middle and one high school—with 4,604 students, or about 460 per school. In 2025–26, the average reported all-grades proficiency was 34% in ELA and 21% in math, compared with state rates of 56% and 40%. The most important finding is that results vary sharply by school: Limestone Middle School is above the state in both subjects, while several schools are far below it.
Limestone Middle School is the clearest academic standout, with 65% proficient in ELA and 48% in math—8 percentage points above the state in each. It leads the next-highest reported school by 15 points in ELA and 24 points in math. At the other end, Edison Primary School has the lowest all-grades ELA result at 13%, while John Kennedy Middle Grade School has the lowest math result at 11%; Limestone is 52 and 37 points higher, respectively. Grade-level results can tell a different story: King Middle Grade School scored 84% in third-grade ELA and 88% in third-grade math, despite all-grades results of 32% and 17%. Kankakee High School also has a mixed profile: graduation was 92%, above the state’s 90%, while grade-11 ACT proficiency was below state rates in ELA, math and science.
Recent trends are mixed: among schools with results in both years, average ELA proficiency rose from 28% to 34% between 2024–25 and 2025–26, narrowing the average gap to the state from 25 to 22 points. Math was essentially flat, while its gap to the state widened from 17 to 18 points. SchoolDigger gives Limestone a three-star rating and a 68th-percentile ranking for 2025–26, though its percentile has fallen 8 points over three years. Context also differs: free/reduced lunch eligible was 34% at Limestone in 2024–25, compared with 85%–94% at the other nine schools; Limestone’s chronic absenteeism was 14%, below the state’s 24%. These are school-level comparisons, not evidence that one measure causes another.
Thank you for your feedback!