Nearly 900 Illinois public schools failed to meet rising No Child Left Behind achievement targets last school year, 30 percent more than missed the mark the previous year.
It’s the first time since the federal reforms took effect in 2002 that the number of failing schools increased.
The failure would have been more widespread had state education officials not taken advantage of provisions in the federal reform that allow states to tinker with math and reading exams, as well as loosening the way passing rates are measured. Without those changes, at least another 572 schools would have missed the mark.
State education officials released the figures Tuesday and will discuss them during a board meeting Wednesday.
“Any time you have schools that are not [meeting standards], that is a concern to us,” said Matt Vanover, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Education. “We are going to look at the results and figure out the best way to work with these schools.”
No Child Left Behind requires states to test students in math and reading in Grades 3 through 8 and once in high school.
To meet the federal targets, schools must ensure that students and subgroups of students — broken down by race, income and special-education status — pass the exams at a level set by the state. That level increases steadily until 2014, when 100 percent of students must pass for the school to meet standards.
Schools that receive federal poverty money, but fail to reach the targets, face a series of sanctions that ultimately could lead to state takeover or conversion to a charter school.
When the law was passed, some educators and politicians expected the number of failing schools would increase dramatically as standards rose. But nationally, the numbers have not gone up as quickly as predicted, mainly because states, including Illinois, have found loopholes that allow them to soften the regulations’ impact.
For example, Illinois allows schools to discount the test scores of students not enrolled in that school by May of the previous school year.
State officials made that change, they said, to give schools enough time to bring new students up to speed.
All told, about 24 percent of public schools in the state landed on the federal failing list, compared with 18 percent last year. The state will release the complete list of failing schools, as well as individual school test results, Oct. 31.
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This year’s increased failure rate may be a canary in the coal mine for Illinois schools: Every year from now on, the mandated pass rate will increase by up to 7.5 percent, until it reaches 100 percent in 2014.
During the 2005-06 school year, a school could make the grade if 47.5 percent of its students, and 47.5 of each subgroup, passed state math and reading tests. During the 2006-07 school year, that rate increased to 55 percent.
Schools had the most trouble getting special-education students on track. Nearly a third of all failing schools — 297 — did so only because of the performance of special-education students.
By law, all but the most disabled students must take the state math and reading exam at their grade level.
No Child Left Behind has been a mixed blessing for the special-education community.
Advocates for disabled students have praised the law for holding schools more accountable for the performance of special-education students, which they charge have long been ignored. On the other hand, they have seen educators blame their schools’ low performance on special-education students.
Charlotte Des Jardins, executive director of Family Resource Center on Disabilities, said school districts, especially those in urban areas, are not focusing enough money and attention on helping special-education students succeed.
“More special-education students would be able to pass these exams at a higher level if they were properly educated,” said Des Jardins, who helps parents of special-education students understand their rights. “How can you expect special-education students to do well on the exams if you don’t give them teachers who are properly trained, aides who can assist them, and then challenge them to excel? In many cases, we are setting them up for defeat.”
Of the 896 state schools that failed to meet the federal rules, 267 of them are in the final stages of the No Child Left Behind sanctions. That means, these schools have failed six years in a row.
Under the federal law, these chronically underperforming schools face what is known as “restructuring,” which can mean state takeover, or new management and new staff.
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