Just weeks before school starts, districts across the state are scrambling to comply with what they contend are the vexing and even impossible requirements of federal education reform, which is affecting more than twice as many schools in its second year.
Officials in 574 Illinois schools complain they are finding out only this week that their students performed so poorly on state achievement exams that districts must allow them to move to better campuses in the fall–creating what one official called a “logistical nightmare.” Last year, 245 schools were on the list.
In all, an estimated 410,000 children, about 20 percent of all public school students in Illinois, would be eligible to switch schools under the federal law, according to a Tribune analysis of Illinois State Board of Education data released Wednesday.
But educators in urban, suburban and far-flung rural districts agree that with so many failing schools it will be difficult if not impossible to find enough spaces at better campuses.
In some districts, such as south suburban Hazel Crest District 152 1/2, every school landed on the poor-performance list, leaving officials with the unrealistic option of persuading neighboring districts to take students who want to transfer.
In Chicago, an estimated 285,000 students at 365 schools are eligible to change campuses. But with overcrowded conditions in many of the remaining schools, and entrance requirements at others, only about 50 schools are open for new students, officials said.
And in low-performing Downstate districts, such as Cairo Unit School District 1, officials would have to bus students as far as 30 miles across county lines–or even into another state–to find a better school.
“This law is ridiculous,” said Robert Isom, superintendent of the Cairo district. “Does anybody in their right mind seriously expect me to move my kids into a Kentucky school?”
With local educators just now finding out that their schools landed on the roster, many are scratching their heads over what to do. Some complain that state officials sent the list too late, giving schools less than a month to notify parents, find new schools and rearrange busing schedules. Others say the law is so unrealistic, they will make only a cursory attempt at enforcing it.
“The time frame that we have is ridiculous,” said Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan, who is still haggling with the state over which schools should be on the list. Chicago Board of Education President Michael Scott called the law a “logistical nightmare.”
Lynne Haeffele Curry, a deputy superintendent for the state board, said state officials understand that busing students to better schools might be unrealistic for some districts. She said the state will allow schools to offer private tutoring instead of a transfer.
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That option, however, can be prohibitively expensive.
“We certainly are not expecting schools to bus students 50 miles away,” Curry said. “We are willing to work with districts, but we intend to enforce the law. People are going to have to comply, whether they like this law or not.”
The No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law last year, greatly expands the federal oversight of public education. It mandates annual testing of students, insists that every classroom teacher be properly trained and sets a 12-year timetable for closing the racial and economic achievement gaps in test scores.
But the linchpin of the law is its accountability measures, which demand that students in failing schools be given the choice to move to better campuses and take their share of federal education money with them. If schools continue to perform poorly, officials must pay for after- or before-school tutoring for students who remain. Continued failure can lead to the school being closed.
Sanctions have limits
The sanctions apply only to schools that receive federal poverty funds.
When the law was first implemented last year, schools had to offer choice if the state had already labeled them as poor-performing and fewer than 50 percent of students passed the 2002 state tests.
The number of affected schools more than doubled this year in part because schools now are also judged by the achievement of certain subgroups, such as minority, low-income, limited-English and special-education students. Each subgroup is expected to meet the annual pass rate, set at 40 percent this year. A subgroup must consist of at least 40 students to be counted.
State officials determine a school’s pass rates from scores on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, taken by elementary students, the Prairie State Achievement Exam, taken by 11th graders, the Illinois Alternate Assessments for special-education students, and the IMAGE test for bilingual students.
State officials had said last month that 627 schools would have to offer choice. They disclosed that number prematurely, before they had time to fully analyze the data, they said this week.
The 574 schools on the preliminary list are located in 73 counties across the state, but the vast majority–491–are in the Chicago area. More than 90 percent of the schools are populated mainly with low-income students.
Suburban Cook County has 81 schools, most of them in the western and southern suburbs, on the roster. Lake County has 15; Will County, 13; and Kane County, 17. No schools from DuPage or McHenry made the list.
Transferring students to better schools will be a particular challenge in the south and southwest suburbs, where the academic failure was widespread.
`Levels of absurdity’
Supt. Lawrence Daker of Reavis Township High School District 220 pointed out that he has nowhere to move students from his Burbank high school because many of the surrounding districts also posted failing marks.
“This law continues to reach higher and higher levels of absurdity,” Daker said. “I guess we can just exchange our students with students in a neighboring school that also posted low marks.”
Many schools, including at least two dozen in Chicago, had overall pass rates of at least 40 percent but got snared by the new stringent subgroup rules.
At Bateman Elementary, 4220 N. Richmond St., for example, 51 percent of students met state norms in reading and 61 percent did so in math. But students with limited English proficiency did not make the grade in reading or math, forcing the school to offer busing to all students for the upcoming school year.
Principal Carl Dasko said he wonders why his school landed on the list, considering it has posted improved test scores over the last few years.
“I think the overall goal [of No Child Left Behind] is laudable,” he said. “It’s a great thing to shoot for, but it’s not very well set up.”
But Dasko believes parents are pleased with the overall learning environment at Bateman and will not pull their children out of the school.
“I think they understand it’s a long-term process. The value of their [children’s] education is beyond just one set of test scores.”