Summary
George Washington Elementary School is a K–6 neighborhood school with 433 students at 2400 Cardinal Drive in East Chicago, Indiana, part of the School City of East Chicago. It serves a high-poverty population—72.3% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch—and spends $14,342 per student, with a 15.5:1 student-teacher ratio. On the 2025-26 ILEARN, 12.7% of students were proficient in English Language Arts, 21.3% in math, and 9.4% in science, and the school ranks in the 9th percentile statewide with 0 stars, continuing a decade in Indiana’s bottom decile.
For parents, the clearest bright spot is attendance: chronic absenteeism has fallen from 65.1% during the pandemic to 24.8%, which is better than the district average (25.8%) and second-best among eleven nearby schools. Math is also a relative strength—21.3% proficiency is above the district average and includes a standout 4th-grade cohort at 41.2% math, only 10.8 points below the state. But literacy has barely moved for four years, staying in the 8–15% band, and science and 5th-grade social studies are the lowest of all eleven comparison schools (9.4% science; 9.4% social studies, versus 47.2% statewide). Performance also drops sharply by 6th grade, where ELA is 5.97%, math 8.96%, and science 6.06%.
Nearby schools show that poverty alone does not explain these results. East Chicago Urban Enterprise Academy, less than a mile away, serves a comparable poverty level and reaches 36.3% ELA, 33.0% math, and 37.8% science with a 2-star rating. Aspire Charter Academy, with a higher poverty rate, more than doubles the school’s ELA proficiency. Meanwhile, Nathan Hale Elementary School in Whiting spends the least among these schools yet posts 43.2% ELA and 2 stars, while the district’s highest-spending, smallest-classed school, Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in East Chicago, has the weakest results. The takeaway: attendance is improving, math has momentum, but literacy, science, and social studies remain urgent priorities.
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