North Division High

North Division High is a grades 9–12 high school at 1011 W Center St in Milwaukee's 53206 ZIP code, part of the Milwaukee School District, serving 346 students — 91.3% of whom qualified for free or reduced-price lunch in 2024-25. In 2025-26 it placed 528th of 533 ranked high schools statewide (1st percentile, 0 stars), and every year with data since 2009-10 puts it between the 0th and 2nd percentile.

Outcomes here are far below district and state benchmarks. Chronic absenteeism reached 88.4% in 2024-25 — about double the district's 46.2% and more than five times Wisconsin's 17.3%. The graduation rate was 42.7%, 28.8 points below the district and 49.3 points below the state, while the dropout rate of 11.7% is roughly three times the district and ten times the state. Test proficiency was 0% in mathematics and 0% in social studies, with 6.67% in English language arts and 3.33% in science. With nearly nine in ten students chronically absent, proficiency results likely reflect irregular attendance and a small tested group as much as instruction.

Resources at North Division are relatively high: $26,397 per student and a student-teacher ratio of 12.4, both second in this comparison group only to Groppi High, which also graduates fewer than half its students (49.2%). By contrast, Milwaukee High School of the Arts (90.8%) and Riverside High (81.2%) graduate most students on roughly $19,000 each, and Tenor High posts 82.1% graduation with the group's lowest chronic absenteeism (32.3%). Nearby, NOVA-Northwest Opportunities Vocational Academy and Groppi High fare worse on some measures but enroll only about 100 students each; North Division's 346 make its results harder to dismiss as small-sample noise. Attendance stands out as the clearest place to start.