The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Illinois students was writ large this week, with the state’s recently released school report card showing steep declines in academic achievement and 1 in 5 students statewide reported as chronically absent during the 2020-21 school year.
Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent Carmen Ayala said the preliminary Illinois School Report Card assessment data from last school year illustrate the “significant impact” of the pandemic and remote learning on student attendance, enrollment and academic achievement.
The report card includes data from student assessments delivered last spring at around 90% of Illinois schools, and taken by roughly 70% of students, ISBE spokesperson Jackie Matthews said.
The state-level data is preliminary as it does not yet reflect all districts, and on Nov. 1, school districts will get access to the school and district aggregate data for a correction period, Matthews said.
Unlike in previous years, the state is releasing the data in two batches, with the district-specific data slated for publication Dec. 2. The testing window last spring was extended because of the pandemic, running from March 15 through May 28, and some districts opted to conduct testing this fall.
“We have witnessed both tragedy and heroism in our schools over the past year. … Students and educators have lost so much and lived and learned through unthinkable obstacles, but loss is not the whole story,” Ayala said.
“We know we have a steep road ahead of us to help students regain skills in math and reading, and we are confident that we have the funding, supports, and talent in our schools to climb that hill,” Ayala said.
Among the most troubling findings in the state report card from the 2020-21 school year are higher rates of chronic absenteeism, lower rates of ninth graders on track to graduate, and steep declines in the percentages of students across grade levels attaining proficiency in math and English language arts, ISBE officials said.
One in five Illinois students was chronically absent last year, missing 10% or more of the school year, with or without a valid excuse — a 21% increase from 2019, officials said. Illinois has roughly 4,000 public schools and enrolls around 1.8 million students.
Preliminary spring testing data also shows far fewer students met grade-level standards in English language arts and math, with the results of the Illinois Assessment of Readiness taken by students in Grades 3 to 8, and the SAT, taken by 11th grade students, showing nearly 17% fewer students met grade-level standards in English language arts in 2021 than in 2019.
Around 18% fewer students met grade-level standards in math, with larger decreases in proficiency among younger students, who officials said “may have struggled more to engage in remote learning than their older peers.”
In addition, the rate of ninth grade students on track to graduate dipped 5% from 2019 to 2021, which officials said reflects “an increase in students receiving failing grades.”
The last school year started with fewer than 10% of Illinois students learning fully in-person, with an increasing number of students returning to school buildings as the year progressed, and a full return of in-person learning at schools statewide this fall, officials said.
Still, the state report card reported nearly 70,000 fewer students enrolled in Illinois public schools, including a roughly 10,000 decline in students attending Chicago Public Schools.
While prior years’ enrollment trends would have anticipated a roughly 1% decrease in student enrollment in a typical year, officials said the 2.5% drop is attributed to the pandemic, and similar to enrollment declines in other states.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement that the state’s 2021 report card shows “the tremendous challenges the pandemic has created for school-aged children the world over.”
“As we move forward, helping our children process this experience and restoring their learning must sit at the heart of every action,” he said.
Pritzker said he has been “working hand-in-hand with school administrators across the state to ensure the $7 billion dedicated to renewing K-12 learning for Illinois students properly addresses this long period of disruption and devastation.”
The annual, federally mandated student assessments were waived in 2020 after the coronavirus pandemic abruptly shut down schools in March 2020.
Last spring, the Illinois State Board of Education and more than 700 Illinois superintendents asked the U.S. Department of Education for another testing waiver for 2021, but their requests were denied. President Joe Biden’s Department of Education said the data is critical to understanding the magnitude of the pandemic’s impact on student learning.