St. Charles 303 officials frustrated by test results
Fewer St. Charles students are prepared for the rigors of college or a career than previously thought, according to the first set of District 303's test results under new Common Core standards.
The results of the PARCC tests show 58 percent of district students tests meet or exceed the new standards. However, not all students took the exam.
Only high school freshmen were tested last year, and they were only given the math and language arts portions. Others districts tested only high school juniors.
St. Charles officials said those differences make direct comparisons between districts impossible.
There are similar difficulties with comparing PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) results with ISAT (Illinois State Achievement Test) results of past years. For one, the PARCC tests were more difficult and took much longer to administer.
"If you just look at the test, it's not a bad test," said David Chiszar, the district's executive director of assessment and accountability. "The actual questions and what the test is measuring has turned out to be actually pretty good. But comparisons are very difficult. Right now, I look at the results as just the data that we have."
Though Chiszar said school district comparisons are not apples-to-apples, he believes St. Charles' performance, including the drops in preparedness measures, are reflective of what schools across the nation saw in the first year of PARCC. The standing of St. Charles' schools is relatively unchanged if results are examined through that lens.
For example, St. Charles' 58 percent meets or exceeds overall score is 25 percentage points better than the state average of 33 percent. The 58 is also the same overall score as Barrington Unit District 220 and Indian Prairie District 204.
Geneva District 304 and Naperville District 203 were the only nearby districts with better overall marks. Geneva had a 61 percent meets or exceeds. Naperville 203 came in at 64 percent.
District officials said they are in a holding pattern in terms of making any changes or improvements in response to the results.
Superintendent Don Schlomann said every indication he's seen shows next school year will be the final year of PARCC tests in Illinois. The politics surrounding Common Core have seen most states drop out of PARCC testing. The tests are also relatively expensive to administer, taking twice as long as an ACT exam.
Schlomann said there is no clear future on what will replace PARCC if the test dies. A lack of a state budget means even the funding for a replacement exam is unknown.
District officials said continuing changes in the tests school district's used to measure student preparedness will make it very difficult for administrators and teachers to use any of the results to improve.
"I hope that PARCC sticks around," Schlomann said. "I don't think it will. Everything we know about the PARCC test has been a positive as far as being an appropriate measure of kids. It was much better than the ISAT, much better. But it is too long. It is too expensive. And we're in a state where this shift in testing came at a really inopportune time."