The decision by state education officials to reinstate a warning list for troubled schools under a tough new exam has sent Chicago Public Schools officials scrambling to get some sort of reprieve from the sanctions.
Otherwise, local school officials fear that a staggering number of city schools–up to 444, or 75 percent of the system, a Tribune analysis shows–could flunk and be put on the list if last year’s dismal scores are repeated next week.
Such an outcome would be a political embarrassment and a setback to claims of educational reform by Mayor Richard Daley’s school team.
Even as schools chief Paul Vallas joined other superintendents in Springfield on Tuesday to discuss the issue with state officials, school board president Gery Chico said he wasn’t surprised by his system’s poor showing.
“Frankly I don’t think anybody is surprised by the work we had to do and the work we have to do,” Chico said. “We’ve made no secret of that. Nobody in our administration is patting ourselves on the back.”
Chico, in fact, said he favored one proposal modifying scores upward for schools with large numbers of students who are minorities or live in poverty or single-parent households.
“The last three years the number of (Chicago) schools on the state warning list has gone down, and all of sudden they introduce the new test and it goes up three- or four-fold. Is it the students or is it the test? This doesn’t add up,” Chico said.
That 444 of 591 Chicago schools failed the new state test last year has created a stark counterpoint to the system’s much publicized gains under another exam, the nationally normed Iowa Tests.
It is also a dramatic about-face to how, under the old state test, Chicago saw a drop in poor performing schools on state failure lists, from 148 in 1994 to 58 in 1998.
Statewide, 898 of almost 3,700 schools failed the new Illinois Standards Achievement Test last year.
The unusually high-stakes nature of next week’s ISAT emerged during last week’s state board meeting when officials said they will resume the school warning list under the usual formula set by state law: more than half of the kids’ tests failing to meet or exceed standards for two consecutive years.
If a school does fail the ISAT again next week, it will be placed on the so-called “academic early warning list,” the first step in a complex series of sanctions that can ultimately lead to a never-invoked state shutdown of persistently failing schools.
That means up to 898 could land on the warning list–which allows the state to step into a school and provide aid such as a coach working with principals and teachers or the dispatch of extra curriculum.
After the ISAT was first given in February 1999, state officials suspended placing any new schools on the warning list–which then stood at 78 schools, with 58 of them in Chicago–saying it would be unfair to give schools a “pass/fail” designation in the first year of a new test.
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The 898 troubled schools include 554 in Cook County, 30 in Kane County, 25 in Lake County, 19 in Will County and one in Kendall County, according to the Tribune analysis. There are no failing schools in DuPage and McHenry Counties, and the remaining 269 are outside the Chicago area.
State Schools Supt. Glenn “Max” McGee reiterated Tuesday evening that he was going to uphold the very criteria that has placed 898 schools on the brink of the warning list. But over the next few months, a task force will consider additional criteria such as attendance, dropout rates and graduation rates to possibly revise the system, he said.
“I do expect some criticism of the test,” McGee said. “I have seen it in other states. We do not intend to back down from the (academic) standards.”
During last week’s meeting, state board chairman Ronald Gidwitz reviewed aloud a state list of troubled schools–the worst school in Illinois is Chicago’s Phillips High, with only 6.4 percent of students meeting standards–and then said:
“That’s more than half of the high schools in Chicago that are in trouble, and I thought school reform was working.”
Chico challenged half of Gidwitz’s statement. “Reform is working–you know that,” Chico said. “I believe he is right in his observation of many Chicago schools failing. That’s why we have placed a focus on high schools.”
Chico and several Chicago-area superintendents were unaware of how many of their schools failed last year. Although all districts had the results, few tabulated the number of failing schools, apparently because of the controversy over the way the new test was administered. Also, last year the state suspended the warning list.
The large number of schools facing sanctions also casts new light on the controversy around whether districts will forgo the optional high school ISAT next week.
A local decision not to give the high school ISAT would complicate accountability. Several districts with failing high schools, including Chicago, have said they plan to ignore the ISAT high school exam, given only at 10th grade.
Instead, the Chicago district plans to use other exams. Still, state officials said they will have a warning list for high schools. There are 58 high schools in Chicago that failed the ISAT last year.
Certainly, the way the Illinois State Board of Education has handled the rollout of its new exam, costing $1.7 million to develop thus far, is a continuing controversy.
In the last few months, local districts were told they did not have to give the 10th grade ISAT (because it will be replaced with a new high school exit exam next year), told they had to give it, were told it’s optional, and are now being told they have to give it to collect federal anti-poverty money.
The number of failing schools on the cusp of academic sanctions poses additional quandaries for the state board: It is considering asking the legislature for more funds to deal with potentially hundreds of troubled schools on the warning list later this year; the state board has budgeted $3.5 million for failing schools this year, $1.5 million of it in Chicago, a spokesman said.
The state board may be pressured politically to significantly revamp the way it designates failing schools, including adding points to the scores of a school with sizable minority or poor student population. But Gidwitz opposes such a measure. “I don’t think we can afford to accept excuses for not preparing children,” he said.
Chico, however, favors including poverty and racial factors until a failing school is “on the right track.” About 90 percent of Chicago’s students are minorities, and 84 percent are from low-income families. “I would be a fool not to take into account circumstances that affect our kids,” Chico said.
On Chicago’s Far North Side, Maurice Harvey Sr., principal of Jordan Elementary, was recently overseeing final preparations for next week’s ISAT. Reading, math and writing tests will be administered in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades and social studies and science tests in 4th and 7th grades.
Teacher Gretchen Collins offered a creative lesson helping her 4th and 5th graders understand math, scientific trials and the environment: students repeatedly cut an apple in halves to demonstrate what portions of the Earth are salt water, fresh water, desert, urban area, and rich soil.
Both echoed how educators throughout Illinois contend the state board isn’t providing all test preparation materials on time and information on how the warning list will be compiled. Only 35 percent of Jordan’s kids passed the ISAT last year.
“We are prepared to take the ISAT,” Harvey said. “Let’s just say, we can do a better job making sure school districts know what is expected of them.”