With unprecedented pressure bearing down from Washington, nearly 60 percent of the state’s grade schools increased student test scores this year–the most since the Illinois Standards Achievement Test was launched five years ago.
But high schools went in the opposite direction, a Tribune analysis of new state data shows: Nearly 60 percent posted declines on a separate test taken by 11th graders.
Experts say the poor showing by high schools means education reforms have yet to reach the system’s oldest students for a variety of reasons, including educators’ resistance to change and students’ apathy over taking yet another exam.
Some Illinois high schools, under threat of punishment from the federal No Child Left Behind Act, are resorting to desperate measures to motivate students. Elmwood Park High School brought in a local Realtor to impress upon students that good test scores keep up their parents’ home values. A Downstate district is raffling off DVD and CD players to students who passed the state exam.
The state superintendent of education, meanwhile, is calling for dramatic reform, proposing that Illinois strengthen its high school graduation requirements, now considered among the weakest in the nation, and require students to pass an exit exam to get their diplomas. Courses such as geometry and biology would be required.
High school and elementary test scores were released Friday as part of the 2003 School Report Cards, an annual picture of public schools that includes everything from test performance and class sizes to financial information for nearly 900 school districts.
The highest stakes are connected to test scores, which are critical in determining whether schools meet standards set out by the No Child Left Behind law enacted last year.
A percentage of students–40 percent in Illinois–must pass state reading and math tests in certain grades or a school will not make “adequate yearly progress,” a failing label that can bring everything from negative publicity to strict state and federal sanctions. Over the next decade, the percentage of students required to pass will gradually increase.
Protects all backgrounds
The federal law also is designed to ensure that children from all backgrounds do well–to identify and discipline schools where decent average test scores mask the poor performance of struggling groups of students. So for the first time this year, schools were judged on whether various student groups met the 40 percent standard, including minority, low-income, disabled and limited English.
Schools also must meet other requirements to avoid a failing label–at least 95 percent of their students must be tested, for example.
The Illinois State Board of Education announced last month that about 44 percent of schools had failed to meet at least one of these standards. Since then, however, hundreds of school districts have complained of data errors and will be permitted to appeal, meaning that as of Friday it was unclear how many schools failed–and for what reason.
The Tribune analyzed overall test scores for nearly 4,000 grade schools and high schools–data that were not considered error ridden. The data included scores on the two main tests–the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests for 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th graders and the Prairie State Achievement Exam for 11th graders. It also included tests given to disabled students and limited-English students, for which schools also are held accountable.
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The figures showed that overall school scores were not the problem for most schools.
Statewide, 86.5 percent of elementary schools posted passing rates of 40 percent or higher on the reading tests, meaning they met state standards in that area. In math, 87.8 percent of elementary schools met standards.
Among high schools, 83.4 percent met standards in reading and 76.5 percent in math.
A notable exception was the Chicago Public Schools, where only 46.3 percent of grade schools met standards in reading, and 47.9 percent in math. The city’s high schools fared worse, with only 17.8 percent meeting math standards and 23.3 percent meeting reading standards.
The Tribune also reviewed trends in Illinois Standards Achievement Test scores since 1999, when the exams were first administered, and three years of the Prairie State Achievement Exam, first given in 2001.
That analysis showed that elementary schools have done a better job of pushing up test scores than high schools.
Across the state, 57.7 percent of high schools posted declines in passing rates on the Prairie State test this year–worse than the year before, when 50.5 percent of schools posted declines.
In contrast, 58.4 percent of grade schools increased test scores–about 1,800 schools spanning rural areas, affluent suburbs and impoverished urban neighborhoods. The improvement was significantly better than 2002, when 45.4 percent increased their passing rates. Previous increases were 54.1 percent in 2001 and 58.3 percent in 2000.
In Chicago, the system’s overall passing rate on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test was 41.8, far lower than the state figure, 63.9 percent. Yet 67.8 percent of the city’s grade schools improved their scores in 2003, the greatest number since the test was created, and four city schools were among the top performers in the state.
Duncan very pleased
“I am very, very pleased,” said schools chief Arne Duncan. “This is our largest jump in ISAT ever …, and we are improving at a faster rate than the rest of the state.”
However, about 56 percent of high schools declined on the Prairie State exam, slightly worse than the previous year.
In Elmhurst, seven of 11 grade schools in Community Unit School District 205 improved scores this year, and 10 of 11 have increased scores since 1999. But the only high school, York Community High School, has had three years of declining passing rates on the Prairie State exam, moving from 73.4 percent passing in 2001 to 69.5 percent this year.
Many administrators said it’s hard to get high school students fired up to do their best on a test that has no bearing on their grades or graduation.
“It’s not a high-stakes test, so there is less motivation,” said Cheryl Kopecky, assistant superintendent of the Elmhurst district.
Indian Prairie School District 204 Supt. Gail McKinzie agreed. “The fact is, there are students who find this test a kind of meaningless venture,” she said. “There are going to be students who find it interesting to make designs on the test sheet.”
Clifford James Jr., a senior at Senn High School in Chicago, said many students don’t take the test seriously because it isn’t required for graduation or college admissions. Scores have been inching up at Senn, but the passing rate was still only 21.4 percent this year, compared with 55.2 percent statewide.
“It really doesn’t matter,” said James. “We just take it because they tell us to.”
“There is no doubt, the problem child of education reform is high schools,” said Craig Jerald, a senior policy analyst at the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group that studies student achievement and has launched a project on high schools.
And although educators often blame declining high school performance on unmotivated students, Jerald said that “from our point of view, it’s really high schools themselves that are the problem. They are very resistant to change.”
Jerald and other experts said most high schools are large and departmentalized, focusing on offering a wide array of courses and tracking students into homogeneous groups.
“High schools are set up assuming some kids will learn a lot and some will learn a little,” Jerald said. “The whole idea of high school teaching is so wrapped around the notion that some kids matter and some kids don’t. It’s very hard to break out of that.”
In contrast, elementary schools are seen as smaller, more child-centered and more willing to switch gears and tackle curriculum changes if pupils aren’t learning.
In the Elmhurst district, Lincoln School took action after posting a 75.2 percent passing rate on achievement tests in 1999, one of the worst performances in the district. “It was a huge wakeup call for us,” said Principal Mary Ann Kalis.
The school determined that writing was the weak area and devoted staff time to changing instruction. This year, the school posted a 90.4 percent passing rate on the tests.
To push high schools in the right direction, said Robert Schiller, state superintendent of education, Illinois needs to take a bold step and institute tougher graduation requirements. That would force students to take courses that will better prepare them for the test, he said.
On Thursday the Illinois State Board of Education proposed that students starting high school in 2008-09 have to pass Algebra I and biology or chemistry to graduate. Students starting in 2009-2010 would have to take three years of math instead of two, including geometry, and two years of science instead of one, including biology and chemistry or physics. Lawmakers would have to approve the proposals.
Diploma requirement
The board also proposed that by 2011-2012 students should be required to pass the Prairie State or other exams in various subjects in order to get a diploma, an approach that has ignited controversy and legal challenges in other states.
At Wauconda Community High School in Lake County, principal Jim LePage plans to unveil a bevy of incentives to motivate his 220 juniors when they take the next test, including prime parking, CD players and movie tickets for students who pass. The school also created a test-preparation program this year for juniors whose previous test scores suggest they may not do well on the Prairie State exam.
Students at Dupo High School, a tiny school in a small town outside St. Louis, bucked the state trend: Their Prairie State passing rate was 55.6 percent this year, up from 40.8 percent. The improvement came with the help of curriculum changes and what Principal Jon Heerboth described as “parlor tricks” aimed at getting students to take the test more seriously.
Heerboth divided students into teams competing for the best scores. The highest-scoring team will be feted with a party, and the school will raffle off a DVD player, a television, CD players and gift certificates to students who met or exceeded standards.
“We had a ton more meets and exceeds this year, but the big question is: What’s next? What’s the next rabbit we can pull out of our hat? Because this little game will buy us some time, but it’s not a long-term solution,” Heerboth said.
“Changing a high school is kind of like pushing a grand piano down a hallway,” he said. “You have to slow it down to change direction and then bring it back up to speed. It’s a tricky thing … because we don’t have a lot of time to get moving again.”
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Top schools in the six-county region
Rankings from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test and Prairie State Achievement Exam are based on a school’s combined test scores.
AREA SCHOOLS WITH BEST OVERALL 2003 ISAT RESULTS
Not all schools include all grade levels that were tested (3,4,5,7,8).
Ranked by percentage of test scores that met or exceeded state standards
%% SCHOOL CITY GRADES TESTED* PCT
Young Magnet High Chicago 7,8 99.8
Edison Elem. Regional Gifted Ctr. Chicago 3,4,5,7,8 99.2
Lenart Elem. Regional Gifted Ctr. Chicago 3,4,5,7,8 98.3
Middlefolk Primary Northfield 3 98.1
Edgebrook Elementary Chicago 3,4,5,7,8 97.6
Walker Clarendon Hills 3,4,5 96.6
Pleasant Hill Elementary Palatine 3,4,5 96.4
Lincoln Elementary River Forest 3,4 95.5
Greeley Elementary Winnetka 3,4 95.3
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Forest Hills Elementary Western Springs 3,4,5 95.2
Madison Elementary Hinsdale 3,4,5 95.2
Keller Elem. Gifted Magnet Chicago 3,4,5,7,8 95.1
Meadow Glens Elementary Naperville 3,4,5 95.0
Whiteley Hoffman Estates 3,4,5 94.7
Blythe Park Elementary Riverside 3,4,5 94.6
* Grades not tested do not exist at the school.
AREA SCHOOLS WITH BEST 2003 PSAE SCORES
Students in 11th grade took the Prairie State Achievement Exam.
Ranked by percentage of test scores that met or exceeded state standards
SCHOOL CITY PCT
Northside College Prep Chicago 99.2
Young Magnet High Chicago 92.3
Deerfield High Deerfield 90.1
Payton College Prep Chicago 89.9
New Trier Township High Winnetka 88.3
Stevenson High Lincolnshire 86.5
Lake Forest High Lake Forest 86.1
Glenbrook North High Northbrook 85.1
Hinsdale Central High Hinsdale 84.6
Naperville Central High Naperville 84.6
Glenbard South High Glen Ellyn 83.8
Naperville North High Naperville 82.4
Libertyville High Libertyville 82.0
Glenbrook South High Glenview 81.9
Highland Park High Highland Park 81.5
Source: Illinois State Board of Education baiduhai
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How test scores changed
Nearly 60 percent of Illinois grade schools improved on standardized tests from 2002, but most high school scores dropped.
%% CHANGE IN PASSING RATES
ISAT (Grades 3, 4, 5, 7,8)
Illinois
Improved: 58.4%
Dropped: 40.6%
Chicago
Improved: 67.8%
Dropped: 31.4%
PSAE (Grade 11)
Illinois
Improved: 40.9%
Dropped: 57.7%
Chicago
Improved: 41.2%
Dropped: 55.9%
Source: Illinois State Board of Education
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