Summary:
ZIP code 60610 has two Chicago high schools, Payton College Preparatory High School and Noble St Charter-The Noble Academy; both serve grades 9–12. Their latest results show a sharply divided picture, with substantial differences across subjects and grades rather than one shared profile for the area. The most important finding is that Payton leads Noble by 57 to 72 percentage points on every latest proficiency measure where both schools have results.
Payton stands out at the top: in grade 11 ACT English language arts, 96% of students were proficient, compared with 25% at Noble, a 72-point gap. In ACT math, the results were 94% and 25%, respectively; in grade 10 PreACT science, they were 94% and 34%. Payton was also 36 to 55 points above the state across its reported measures. Noble is the lower-performing school in this comparison: its reported results were 14 to 27 points below the state. Its grade 9 and grade 10 PreACT math results were suppressed, so those school-to-school comparisons cannot be made.
Recent results are mixed, with some notable gains at Noble but no consistent upward trend: its ACT math proficiency rose 10 points and grade 10 PreACT science rose 12 points, while ACT English fell 17 points. Payton’s results rose in five of nine repeated comparisons and fell in four. SchoolDigger ranked Payton 3rd statewide in each of the last three years, including 3rd of 620 in 2025–2026; Noble ranked 520th of 620, and its reported percentile fell from 27 to 16 over that period. Other context differs too: Noble’s student–teacher ratio was lower (11.8 versus 14.5), while its 2024–2025 free/reduced lunch eligible share was higher (82% versus 33%). In 2025–2026, Payton’s graduation rate was 99% and chronic absenteeism was 23%, compared with Noble’s 86% graduation rate and 54% chronic absenteeism; these are observations, not explanations for test results.
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