More than 13 percent of the math and reading tests taken by Illinois students last year were not counted under the No Child Left Behind law, more than three times the percentage exempted the previous year, according to a Tribune analysis of state data.
The federal reform is based on the premise that every child can pass state math and reading exams if given access to a good school. But more than 283,000 exams were discounted. Low-income and minority students, whom the law was designed to help, were the most likely to see their scores negated, according to the analysis of recently released 2006 school report card data.
The dramatic increase can be tied to the state’s decision to relax a little-noticed provision of the federal law.
Under the reform, schools are judged only on the scores of students enrolled for a “full academic year.” Each state is allowed to determine what constitutes a full year.
Until last year, Illinois schools were responsible only for students enrolled by Oct. 1 of that school year.
Now, students must be enrolled by May 1 of the previous school year for their score to count under the federal law.
The relaxation of the rules helped 53 schools, including 28 in Chicago, escape the federal failing schools list. Schools that land on the roster face a series of escalating sanctions, including allowing students to transfer to better campuses and offering free tutoring to those who remain.
The enrollment exemption is designed to avoid penalizing schools that have many students transferring in after the school year has begun — often, children from homeless, migrant and low-income families.
But critics argue that the exemption leaves behind the very children the law intends to protect.
“There is nothing I can say except this is insane and ridiculous,” said Amy Wilkins with the Education Trust, a reform think tank in Washington, D.C.
“If you have a lot of mobile students, the answer should not be, ‘Let’s not count them,’
” she said. “The district and schools should focus on how to help these kids read and compute.”
In Illinois, nearly one in four African-American students and one in five low-income students did not have their test scores count under the federal law, the data showed.
‘We need more time’
Educators contend that students who transfer into school late are often far behind academically. It takes time to get them acquainted with the new curriculum, then bring them up to speed academically, educators said.
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“It’s not that we think it’s OK to ignore the kids who come to us late,” said Vera Williams-Willis, principal at Altgeld Elementary School in Chicago, which didn’t count about one-third of test scores because of late enrollees. “But the reality is, we need more time with them. The longer the kids are with us, the better they perform.”
Altgeld, in the economically depressed West Englewood neighborhood, benefited from the change in the state rules.
About 40 percent of its students transfer in or out during the school year, Williams-Willis said.
If all of Altgeld’s test scores had been counted, the school would not have met the federal guidelines. But by negating about 300 math and reading exams, the school met the federal mark.
It was the first time since the law was enacted in 2002 that Altgeld did not land on the failure list. Williams-Willis said she was “ecstatic” when she found out her school dodged the list.
“We work hard with these kids, but we should not be penalized because we don’t have the time to get them on task,” Williams-Willis said.
Federal provision praised
At Fairfield Academy in Chicago’s Marquette Park neighborhood, 27 percent of test scores were negated.
Principal Brenda Thomas praised the law’s allowance for late-enrolling pupils. She said 10 children transferred into her school this month — six months into the school year. They enrolled the week pupils were taking the state achievement exams.
“It’s very difficult for a child to stay focused when the family is moving around a lot,” Thomas said. “It’s not fair to hold the child or the school responsible for that test score when the kids are moving in and out of schools.”
The data analyzed by the Tribune also showed that there are still significant problems with the state’s testing system.
All scores tossed aside
In 22 schools, 100 percent of math and reading exams were discounted, according to the Tribune analysis.
In some cases, the schools were new, accepting their first students in fall 2005. Since there were no students in May of the previous school year, no test scores were counted for federal purposes.
But in other cases, students were mistakenly counted as late enrollees.
In high-scoring Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake, for example, 99 percent of test scores were not counted because the pupils were marked as late enrollees.
Margaret Pennington, interim principal at Prairie Crossing, said her school has a stable population and called the data incorrect.
In other schools, errors may have been made, but principals and superintendents complain that they got test scores so late, they have not had the time — or inclination — to go back and check every detail.
Scores are 5 months late
Because of a series of computer and human errors, the 2006 test scores, which were supposed to be released in October, were not released until earlier this month — a full year after students took the exam.
At Gordon Elementary School in south suburban Posen, 48 percent of pupil exams were not counted, according to the Tribune analysis.
If all the tests had been tallied, the school would have posted a 36 percent pass rate in reading and 57 percent in math, the Tribune found.
With those numbers, Gordon would have landed on the federal roster of low-performing schools and would have had to offer pupils a chance to transfer to a higher-performing school in the district.
But after nearly half of all test scores were tossed aside, the pass rates jumped. Under the new calculation, 40 percent of pupils met the reading standard and 68 percent in math. Those scores were high enough to keep the school off the list.
Greg Wright, superintendent of Posen-Robbins School District 143.5, said Gordon Elementary has a high pupil mobility rate, but he does not think it’s 48 percent.
“That sounds a bit high, but I haven’t had a chance to go back and analyze the data,” he said. “To be honest, it was so late in getting here, it’s insignificant. It certainly came too late to guide our instruction, and isn’t that supposed to be the point of all the testing?”
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Counting them out
After Illinois loosened a rule, the number of school tests not counted under federal reforms rose dramatically.
283,000
Number of math and reading tests for 2006 not counted by Illinois schools, five times as many as the previous year.