High school enrollment, high school graduation, college enrollment, college persistence, and college completion rates for Chicago Public Schools students by neighborhood. CPS data is organized by the community area students come from or live in

Approaching Chicago Student Attainment from a Community Perspective Report

New insights into differences in educational opportunity between Chicago's community areas

This research examines how Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students’ educational attainment looks by their community area — as opposed to the more common comparison by high school, which can obscure geographic inequities in students' outcomes. The study found that the expansion of school choice in CPS has resulted in a district where fewer than one in four CPS freshmen enrolled in their assigned neighborhood high school in 2019. 

To provide new insights into the district's progress in addressing geographic inequities, study analyzes the variation in CPS students' high school and college attainment between Chicago's community areas, and compares this variation to that among high schools in the district. The accompanying To&Through Community Milestones Tool enables the public to dive even deeper into the data, providing an interactive interface to explore rates of attainment for CPS students living in each of Chicago's 77 community areas.

Community report teaser image CPS data on high school graduation rates high school enrollment data and college enrollment rates and college completion rates by neighborhood and by community area in Chicago

Read the report

The study's findings both reinforce and complicate the story of rising high school and college attainment among CPS students. While CPS students’ high school and college enrollment rates were similar regardless of what community area they lived in, their community area continued to matter greatly in whether they attained a college credential. Read the report to dive deeper into these insights and more.

To&Through community milestones tool explore Chicago Public Schools (CPS) data on high school enrollment, high school graduation, college enrollment, and college completion for each of Chicago's 77 community areas CPS statistics by neighborhood

To&Through Community Milestones Tool

Our new To&Through Community Milestones Tool is a first-of-its-kind interactive data tool that organizes data on CPS students' attainment by the community area in which they live rather than the school they attend. The tool enables the public to track five key milestones of high school and college attainment for CPS students in each of Chicago’s 77 community areas across time and for students of different races/ethnicities and genders.

chicago public schools data chicago school choice

Watch the research presentation

Watch the recording of our research release webinar during which study authors presented key findings from the report and gave a demo of the To&Through Community Milestones Tool.

Looking for more? Read a brief summary of this report to better understand how it helps explain the ongoing impact of Chicago’s racial segregation on students’ educational experiences. You can also learn more about why following patterns of Chicago communities’ school choice matters and how this community attainment data informs what must be done to improve the high schools’ outcomes reliability. ​Don't forget to explore the To&Through Community Milestones Tool to see data for all 77 of Chicago's community areas.