Why state considers Stevenson a failure

Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire and academic failure typically are not in the same sentence.

Its list of achievements is extensive, with highlights including the following:

• About 98 percent of Stevenson graduates go on to college each year.

• It's Illinois' only public high school to capture four U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon of Excellence awards.

• Students in the 2009 graduating class posted a 25.7 composite score on the ACT college entrance exam (the score range is 1 to 36), equaling the best performance in Stevenson history and ranking well above the 21.1 national average.

But in the black-and-white world of 2009 state report card results that are part of the federal No Child Left Behind initiative, Stevenson is among 14 Lake County high schools that failed to meet standards.

"It would cause any reasonable person to scratch their heads and wonder why," Stevenson High School District 125 Superintendent Eric Twadell said.

Under the achievement exam system, 70 percent of last year's juniors had to score at grade level or a school would be tagged as not passing on the report card. Certain categories of students, such as special education or limited English, also had to hit at least 70 percent for a school to pass.

Despite the highest scores ever in mathematics, reading and science by Stevenson's overall student population, special education missed the state's performance bench mark of 70 percent. Stevenson failed because the special ed pupils fell short.

Twadell said the school will aggressively seek new strategies in an effort to boost the special education students' performance on the Prairie State Achievement Exam.

"We'll continue to do everything we can to teach these kids to be successful," Twadell said. "We're not going to wash our hands of them."

Twadell said the 120 special education pupils of the 1,150 total juniors who took the achievement exam last spring tallied the highest scores ever for that subgroup at Stevenson. He said the special ed teenagers were mostly tripped up by the ACT college entrance exam portion of the Prairie State test.

Other high schools accompanying Stevenson on the failure list include Warren Township, Lake Zurich, Mundelein, Round Lake and Wauconda.

Jodi Wirt, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction at Lake Zurich Unit District 95, said the high school's failure, like Stevenson's, occurred because 70 percent of special education pupils did not score at grade level.

Wirt said she supports holding schools accountable for children's performance.

However, she said, a one-size-fits-all measurement for the special education population doesn't take into account how those students generally don't grasp concepts at the same time.

"I think it's unfair to say a school district or a high school is failing based on one subgroup's performance," Wirt said.

On the elementary side, Antioch District 34, Gurnee District 56, Libertyville District 70 and Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 were among those to pass this year's report card.

The elementary systems listed as failing include Woodland District 50, Grayslake District 46, Fremont District 79 and Diamond Lake District 76.