Assignment: Boost high school scores

Why is it proving so difficult to improve high school students' standardized test scores?

That question jumps off the page from news reports on the latest round of results, which the Illinois State Board of Education released last week.

Elementary students across the state encouraging posted gains in tests taken last spring. Across the state, 78.7 percent of third- through eighth-graders met state standards, an increase of almost 2 percentage points.

But only 52.6 percent of the state's juniors tested at their grade level in reading, math and science. That's a decrease of almost 2 percentage points from 2006 and means -- appallingly -- that only slightly more than half of Illinois juniors are testing at their grade level in all three of these key academic areas. In reading -- so vital to success in virtually every academic or work endeavor -- the percentage of juniors testing at grade level tumbled to 54.1 percent this year, well down from 58.4 percent in 2006.

Granted, these are statewide results. Most Northwest and West suburban high schools will be able to boast much better results when the state board of education makes individual school results available in October. And while that will speak well of suburban schools, the problem of poor results across Illinois cannot be ignored.

Making the latest results even more frustrating is that they were recorded as the state is making concerted efforts to make high school education more rigorous. Two years ago, legislators mandated that all high school students take four years of English, three of math and two of science. It might be too early to see the results of those standards, as last spring's juniors were only sophomores when lawmakers OK'd the new requirements.

Beyond that, educators have mostly guesses about why scores remain low, particularly among urban high schools. One school of thought says juniors have little incentive to do well on the state portion of these two-part tests. Students first take the ACT portion -- the results of which are key to their college admission plans -- and only then take the remaining state-mandated portion. Students see real-world consequences from performing poorly on the ACT; that's not the case on the state-sponsored portion of the exams.

Others suggest that high schools, largely because of their size, face a harder time than elementary schools trying to get all teachers on the same page when it comes to instruction standards.

Because these results are not arbitrary numbers -- because they tell us how well prepared teens are for life beyond high school -- state education authorities must continue to work with a sense of urgency to determine why high school scores are so low and how they can be bolstered.