Grade schools improve, high schools tumble in latest test scores
In a year of heightened expectations on state tests, 900 Illinois schools landed failing grades, results released today show -- including more high schools than ever in the past five years of No Child Left Behind accountability.
And more than a few of those schools, especially some in the suburbs, wonder how it could have happened at a time when they put more work than ever into improving their programs.
Nearly 20 suburban high schools, from Lake Forest to Elk Grove and Wheaton, are among those that slipped after passing last year's tests.
Other schools, though, rose to the occasion, with nearly 200 making the grade after missing the mark last year.
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The poor performance of state high schools -- 328 fell short, 100 more than in 2006 -- has wary educators surmising there may have been factors at work beyond the stepped-up standards, from tougher tests to unmotivated teens.
"I don't think that, somehow, this year's students were just not as high-performing as last year's," said Steve Cordogan, who helped crunch the test numbers in Northwest Suburban High School District 214.
Statewide, high school test scores sank in both math and reading, but reading fared particularly poorly. Only about 54 percent of Illinois 11th-graders met or exceeded standards in that subject this year, down more than 4 percentage points from 2006.
Only high school juniors take the two-day Prairie State Achievement Examination, a test that includes the ACT.
"We're not really sure why they're down," state Superintendent Christopher Koch said of reading scores, adding officials will be looking "very closely" at the situation. "We actually expect to see a slight increase ... every year."
The scenario has prompted frustration at the local level; last week, a group of Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 officials trooped to Springfield to try to decipher how a revamped curriculum and hard work could land their schools lower scores.
That district's Conant High took a 10-point hit on reading scores this year and earned a failing grade overall, just one year after passing overall.
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"We know what we're doing over here, and we're working harder than you can imagine, putting in surefire things that should improve achievement, and yet we're seeing drops," Assistant Superintendent Jeff Butzen said. "That really disturbs us."
In Lake Villa, Lakes Community High found itself in a similar boat, dropping by 8 percentage points in reading and netting a failing grade after passing last year. In Arlington Heights, Hersey High knocked nearly 7 points off its reading score, but still managed to hit the state goals.
On the flip side, reading and math scores on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, taken by third- through eighth-graders, improved in every grade statewide this year. About 70 percent or more of students in each grade met or exceeded reading goals. In eighth grade specifically, more than 80 percent of kids hit the mark.
Top education officials also tout the fact that nearly 200 Illinois schools, some of them high schools, moved off the state's academic watch and early warning lists this year by passing for a second time. Never have so many schools accomplished that feat.
All of the results come despite increases in the number of students tested, and on the heels of higher targets: To earn a No Child passing mark in 2007, 55 percent of a school's students overall and in each subgroup -- defined as 45 or more kids who meet specific income, language, racial or ability criteria -- had to meet or exceed state-set math and reading standards.
In 2006, only 47.5 percent of students had to get there. Next year, 62.5 percent of kids will need to hit the mark.
A slipup anywhere nets an entire school a failing grade and subjects the building to sanctions that can include offering students the choice to attend a different school and complete restructuring.
This year, more than 500 Illinois schools are facing federal sanctions; those apply only to schools that take Title I cash for low-income kids.
All schools are subject to state ramifications, and all educators stress they'd still like their kids to succeed.
That's precisely why many say the poor performance of 11th-graders on last spring's test is proving so maddening.
Butzen, for one, goes so far as to say it seems impossible.
The 4-percentage point, one-year drop in high school reading scores is just too much statistically, he said, for such a vast group of kids.
Educators trying to make sense of it have suggested the culprit could be a change in the PSAE itself, year to year.
"One of the biggest questions is just how, exactly, the tests were equated between the years," Cordogan said, because "I would find it hard to believe that students were suddenly lower-performing."
ACT officials, who oversee the PSAE, deny this year's exam was any harder. They also say they use a scoring mechanism that factors in difficulty, adjusting the number of correct answers needed for a top score based on how hard that form is.
State officials suggest a lack of motivation was a key factor: After sweating through the ACT -- a test that can directly impact college admissions -- on the first day of the PSAE, they suggest 11th-graders perhaps just didn't work as hard on day two.
That would make sense, they hypothesize, of the ACT score gains seen in many of the same school districts that suffered a dip in PSAE tallies. At Hersey, for instance, the PSAE reading score dropped, while the ACT score climbed by two-tenths of a point.
"It's just harder to motivate students, and everything, at the secondary level," said Diane Rentner, with the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Education Policy.
Deb Perryman, an Elgin High School science teacher, puts a twist on that hypothesis. She said she believes Illinois may see a drastic difference between ISAT and PSAE performance because of the way things can change from elementary to high school.
Students at younger ages simply may be more inclined to succeed on tests, driven by an optimistic view of the future, Perryman said. By high school, she suggested, some may be worn down and worn out, seeing their parents work two jobs to make ends meet and feeling they have little chance of doing any better.
"They get to this stage and they don't see that American Dream anymore. They don't feel that anymore," she said. "I believe that a lot of our kids feel as if they have no future."
A state analysis shows that PSAE performance sank for nearly all categories of teens from 2006 to 2007 -- except American Indians, kids with disabilities, migrants and kids who speak limited English.
At the same time, the data suggests a continuation of the achievement gap: Students with "at-risk" characteristics like limited English ability, special education needs and low income levels continue to fall short of state standards more often than their peers, no matter what grade of school they're in.
Over time, the No Child law has been tweaked with an eye on giving schools more of a chance. Illinois schools, for example, now get a 14 percentage-point leeway when calculating scores for kids with disabilities, if that's the only area they've fallen short.
If a group of those students scores 41 percent, then -- 14 points below this year's goal -- it will collectively pass.
Another "safe harbor" rule allows a passing grade in any case where a school moves 10 percent of the prior year's failing students into the meets or exceeds category. This year, more than 160 Illinois schools used that boost to help net a passing mark.
Still, the law's expectations, which only will get tougher -- the legislation requires that every child read and calculate math at grade level by 2014 -- prove annually frustrating for educators, who say they admire the goals but feel they are at times impossible.
"I don't want to feel like a failure everyday, and that's what I feel like. You just feel like, 'We're never going to make it,'" said Perryman, a former Teacher of the Year.
Elgin has failed every year since No Child took effect, and she predicts every school in the nation is going to be on that same list by about 2010.
A Daily Herald analysis of this year's scores shows she could be on the right track.
After measuring this year's total math and reading scores against increasingly stringent standards of the future, tallies show 99 percent of schools covered by the Daily Herald would be failing by 2014.
Even factoring in an annual 2-percentage point improvement doesn't fix everything. In that case, 63 percent of schools in Lake County would fail by 2014; 77 percent of schools serving the Fox Valley would be in the same boat. About 45 percent of the Daily Herald schools in DuPage County and 57 percent of those in Northwest suburban Cook County would be failing.
The analysis does not take the performance of any subgroups into consideration.
The expectations are extra tough on high schools, some educators said, because the buildings are larger by nature and typically have more subgroups of teens that must be somehow brought up to par.
Such added accountability, Cordogan insisted, means it inevitably can be harder for the school to make the grade.
In a study he did of 73 Chicago-area schools, nearly 80 percent of those that had at-risk subgroups flunked under No Child this year. In stark contrast, every one of the 14 other schools had passed.
Consider Waubonsie Valley High. That Aurora school put an emphasis on bumping up black students' math scores after a poor grade last year, and it worked -- but the school ended up missing the mark in seven other subgroup areas this year instead.
Yet, officials there remain optimistic, saying they refuse to believe No Child's end goal is truly just pie in the sky.
"I believe there are things we can do better," said Patrick Nolten, who crunches the scores in Indian Prairie Unit District 204, which includes Waubonsie Valley High. "We can identify kids (who need help) as soon as possible ... and try to target and focus within that group.
"We'd like to think we have the capacity to exert some kind of influence in how kids really are doing in school."
Educators across the board warn test scores alone are not sole indicators of success.
But the earlier arrival of this year's data - 2006's scores didn't hit the schools until nearly a year after the fact -- will give teachers time to figure out what they need to do to increase performance, and make changes, officials said.