Horace Mann Elementary

Horace Mann Elementary is a PK–5 neighborhood school at 6213 W Lapham St in West Allis, Wisconsin, serving 384 students as part of the West Allis-West Milwaukee School District. Its academics have been remarkably flat for a decade: the school has ranked between the 10th and 22nd percentile of Wisconsin elementary schools every reporting year, and currently sits at the 11th percentile with 1 star out of 5. About 72% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and enrollment is mid-sized compared with nearby schools.

Proficiency is the clearest challenge, and Horace Mann trails even its own district peers. On the 2025–26 Forward Exam, 12.5% of third graders were proficient in English language arts, compared with 35.58% across the district and 52.08% statewide; third-grade math was 17.86% versus 36.39% and 54.75%. Among the four same-district elementary neighbors — Franklin Elementary, Wilson Elementary, Jefferson Elementary and Pershing Elementary — Horace Mann posts the weakest state rank, despite spending $15,871 per student with a 13.4 student-teacher ratio, essentially identical to those schools. Pershing Elementary shows what is possible without extra money: it spends $248 less per student, serves a higher-poverty population, and still reaches the 22nd percentile.

Chronic absenteeism is the most actionable issue. At 22.1% in 2024–25, Horace Mann's rate is the highest in its West Allis peer group and above both the district (19.5%) and state (17.3%) — but it has declined five years in a row, from 34.7% in 2020–21, and the gap to the district has narrowed to about 2.6 points. Grades also diverge sharply: fifth graders reached 36.84% ELA and 33.33% math proficiency, roughly 2.5 times the third-grade results on the same exam, which points to early literacy and numeracy as the area to watch most closely.