Report shows state lags in closing achievement gap

While most states are making gains in closing the achievement gap between various socioeconomic student groups, Illinois is lagging behind, a report released Thursday says.

The Washington D.C.-based Center on Educational Policy's report, "Are Achievement Gaps Closing and Is Achievement Rising For All?", found racial and ethnic performance disparities have narrowed across the country, particularly at the elementary school level.

However, Illinois is one of the few states to make what the think tank's president calls "insufficient progress," with gaps widening in a number of areas. A surge in the number of Latino test takers, changes in which students the state tests and how, and a difference in rigor between grade school and high school assessments could all partially be to blame.

"Some hard questions ought to be asked about low student performance, particularly in the Latino subgroup," Center President Jack Jennings said.

The report looked at the standardized test results of fourth-, eighth- and 11th-grade students across the country from 2002 to 2008. In Illinois, scores were tracked from 2006 to 2008. The state's scoring scale changed in 2006.

After looking at the performance of each grade as a whole, the report broke student scores into subgroups including white, black, Latino, Asian, low-income students, disabled students, and English language learners.

Because each state takes different tests, Center consultant Naomi Chudowsky said, the study avoided direct comparisons of one state's performance with another.

However, according to the report, a majority saw achievement gaps narrow among all grade levels, particularly for Latino and black students.

"The country has been trying to address the achievement gap for 10 years now," Jennings said. "All that seems to be bearing fruit."

But not in Illinois.

The percentage of all students in fourth and eighth grades meeting state standards in math and reading was stagnant in the three-year period, but the percentage of high school students meeting standards dipped by five points in the reading category, to a lowly 53 percent.

Of the subgroups, white students continued to be the highest achieving at all levels. Black students made gains in both subjects at the elementary and middle school levels but slipped in high school.

The gap widened between Latino students and the rest of the students in elementary and high school. The percentage of Latino students meeting reading standards fell at both levels by eight points or more.

The number of English language learners earning proficient reading scores dropped even more drastically, standing at just 38 percent in 2008.

While center officials made no efforts to illuminate the reasons behind the trends, the numbers themselves point to a number of clues.

Of all subgroups, Latino students - some of the state's lowest performing - saw the biggest growth in numbers over the three-year period, growing by nearly 12,000 students in fourth grade, 5,000 in eighth grade, and 4,000 in 11th grade. Growth was less drastic in other states.

Additionally, 2008 was the first year Illinois required students new to English to take the same exam as other students. Dozens of suburban districts saw schools fail to meet standards because of the change.

Illinois high schools, too, may be struggling more than the other levels for a reason.

The Prairie State Exam, composed of the ACT and the WorkKeys test, is considered to be a far more rigorous exam than the Illinois Standards Achievement Test given to younger students. Students who sail through grade school tests often don't do as well in high school.

Illinois is one of only five states in the nation that asks all high school students to take the ACT.

Test scores in Elgin Area School District U-46 - the state's second-largest school district - closely mirror those of Illinois. To combat disparities in scores, U-46 in the past year and a half has begun using its own method of mapping student performance, more closely tied to college readiness standards and the ACT.

U-46 Superintendent Jose Torres said Wednesday that 2009 report cards, which will be released by the state later this month, "show things are going in the right direction, though they're not moving as quickly as we need them to."