Summary:
ZIP 46312 is East Chicago, Indiana, and it contains 8 schools — 6 elementary schools (two of them K–8 charters), 1 middle school, and 1 high school — serving 4,031 students. About 77% of those students (3,112) attend the six schools of the School City of East Chicago, while the rest attend two charter districts, East Chicago Lighthouse Charter (495 students) and East Chicago Urban Enterprise Academy (424 students). It is a high-poverty area: every school has a free/reduced-lunch rate above 63%, and every school's chronic absenteeism is above Indiana's 16.7% rate.
East Chicago Urban Enterprise Academy is the clear academic standout — the only school in the ZIP above the 20th percentile in the 2025–26 statewide ranking (47th percentile, 2 stars), with all-grade proficiency of ELA 36.27%, Math 32.98%, and Science 37.78%, far above every other school here. Benjamin Harrison Elementary School is the strongest traditional district elementary (17th percentile), posting the ZIP's lowest absenteeism at 19.4% and proficiency above district averages in all three subjects. By contrast, Abraham Lincoln Elementary School ranks lowest (3rd percentile) with the ZIP's lowest ELA (6.57%) and Math (10.22%) despite the highest per-pupil spending ($16,751), and East Chicago Lighthouse has the highest poverty (98.99%) and absenteeism (42.5%).
At the high school level, East Chicago Central High School graduates 90.9% of its students, above the state's 89.7%, yet its SAT results are far below state — Evidence-based Reading and Writing 18.26% vs. 51.9%, and Math 4.56% vs. 25.6%. Absenteeism is a system-wide challenge, and spending and class size do not clearly track with achievement: William McKinley Elementary School spends the least ($12,860) but still beats the district average in Math. Families should weigh the strong showings at Urban Enterprise and Harrison against the broader pattern of low proficiency across the ZIP.
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