Illinois test standards may be lower, study says
More than three-quarters of Illinois students read and calculated math at grade level this year.
Four years ago, nearly two-thirds -- or 64 percent of state public school children -- qualified as academically proficient on state exams.
The increase may owe as much to sliding standards and exam changes as to true academic progress. So cautions a report released today by the Thomas Fordham Institute, an education research group in Washington, D.C.
State education officials dismissed the report, saying it overlooks the emphasis on grade-by-grade learning standards and a resulting upswing in student scores.
Federal law requires that rising numbers of students score at grade level in reading and math, pumping up the pressure until all children must be academically proficient by 2014.
But states provide the academic yardstick by which students are judged.
In Illinois, standards may be slipping, the report contends.
"Illinois tests seem to be easier for Illinois students to pass than they were a few years ago," said Michael Petrilli of the Fordham Institute. "That could be because Illinois students are being prepped to do well on those tests."
This comes a week after scores on different, national tests showed Illinois students edged slightly higher in reading and math, with math results posting the strongest gains.
Initial scores from the battery of state exams revealed a similar tend.
Across the board, students averaged 8.8 percentage points higher in math than reading in third through eighth grade, initial results from the state exams show.
"We look at all of those scores, we glean information from all of them and then we determine what is it our children really need," said Diane Cody, superintendent of Winfield Elementary District 34.
Yet the report released today suggests Illinois math exams may be easier to pass than reading tests. Illinois' math standards ranked in the bottom third of 26 states surveyed nationwide.
The Illinois State Board of Education lowered the passing grade for math exams given to all eighth-graders in the spring of 2006.
"With the exception of eighth-grade math, there was no decrease in Illinois' cut scores," state agency spokesman Matt Vanover said.
Higher expectations in reading ranked Illinois in the top third along the spectrum of difficulty, the study shows.
The study looked only in areas where students take state-issued exams and a test by the National Education Association called the Measure of Academic Progress. Researchers overlaid state tests to the national exam to gauge rigor.