Tri-Cities schools solid, but subgroups struggle

Tri-Cities area schools and districts pretty much made the grade - with a few exceptions - on the state's 2009 school report card.

Not making adequate yearly progress was West Aurora District 129, both as a district and at many of its schools.

It's a similar story to last year: The district has significant portions of limited-English, Hispanic, black and low-income students who did not meet state standards in reading and math.

Batavia High School was listed as "failing" on the 2009 report card. That's because one of the subgroups, disabled students, did not score well enough on reading and math.

Last year, there weren't enough disabled students to form a subgroup, which requires 45 or more students.

Jan Wright, Batavia's associate superintendent for teaching and learning, said she thinks the report card standards, mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act, have been good for many high-performing districts in that it makes officials look at specific subgroups of students, not just aggregate scores.

However, like administrators elsewhere, she believes it is not fair to two subgroups: disabled learners and those designated as having limited-English proficiency (LEP). In both cases, the schools work with students to overcome their challenges and, if successful, the students are recategorized into the general student population.

That means the subgroup typically contains those with the least amount of skills. Expecting them to meet the ever-higher standards is "unrealistic," Wright said. "It's kind of an oxymoron."

The state used to allow the LEP students to take a different test, designed for their language limitations, but since spring 2008 has required them to take the same test as all other students, in English.

"We would love to see the state legislators take the fifth-grade math test in Chinese and see how well they do," said Mike Chapin, West Aurora District 129's community relations coordinator.

bull; Thompson Middle School in St. Charles failed in 2009, also because its subgroup of disabled learners did not meet state standards. And St. Charles East High School, which failed to make AYP (adequate yearly progress) in 2008, passed this year.

While East's scores for disabled students did improve several percentage points over last year, it still didn't make the 70 percent. But the state said it met the Safe Harbor target, which uses the previous year's scores as a baseline to see if a subgroup is making progress, said Mark Pomplun, the district's director of assessment and accountability.

"It's going to be a bigger challenge to get those kids up to the bench mark," he said.

Pomplun said the district is looking at why fewer of the severely disabled students at Thompson who took a different test, the Illinois Alternate Assessment, passed that test.

bull; Kaneland and Geneva school districts and all their schools made adequate yearly progress for the second year in a row.

bull; District 129's Jewel Middle School in North Aurora found itself in much the same situation as St. Charles East: It passed this year because the disabled group's passing rate improved and it therefore made Safe Harbor. Fearn Elementary in North Aurora failed this year; its Hispanic subgroup's passing rate dropped to 61.4 percent from last year's 70.5 in reading, and the economically disadvantaged subgroup dropped to 49.2 in reading from last year's 68 percent. Montgomery's Nicholson Elementary, which passed in 2008, failed, as its black and Hispanic subgroups did not reach the mark. Schneider Elementary, in North Aurora, which passed in 2008, was knocked off as its Hispanic and economically disadvantaged subgroups didn't make the grade. McCleery's limited-English proficiency students didn't make the standard this year, so the Aurora school didn't. At Washington Middle School in Aurora, black, limited-English proficiency and disabled students failed this year but met the mark last year.

Challenges: St. Charles East meets Safe Harbor target