Only four out of 12 District 21 schools meet standards

Although eight out of the 12 schools in Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress in 2011, district officials said they are not disappointed in their students.

The issue in District 21 mirrors that across the state where less than half of all schools in Illinois, and only 35 percent of all districts, met AYP in 2010, according to the Illinois State Report Card. AYP is a measurement for student progress using the results of statewide testing under the No Child Left Behind Act.

“We don’t dismiss the test, but we use it in terms of seeing if our students are growing,” said Superintendent Gary Mical. “But it’s hard for us to say we would ever be in 100 percent compliance with AYP.”

Mical said the district looks for growth indicators for student improvement, even if they are not meeting certain test levels.

Under AYP for 2011, schools were required to have a 91 percent attendance rate, test 95 percent of students in reading and math, and have at least 85 percent of students in all subgroups meet or exceed standards in those subjects.

Subgroups include students with learning disabilities or whose first language is not English. If a subgroup does not meet the standards in any one area, the school as a whole does not pass,

Every school in District 21 met the first two criteria, but test results in several subgroups held back two-thirds of the district.

Schools that made AYP in District 21 were Longfellow Elementary and Cooper Middle schools in Buffalo Grove, and Poe and Riley elementary schools in Arlington Heights.

Field, Frost, Kilmer, Tarkington, Twain and Whitman elementary schools, plus Holmes and London middle schools, failed to make AYP in 2011.

“The picture we get through AYP isn’t as accurate as we would like it to be,” said Janelle Hockett, director of curriculum and instruction for the district. “It gives us one lens to look at our students through.”

The schools that did not make AYP are mostly in Wheeling and Mount Prospect, where the student body is much more diverse, which Mical said is a factor.

“When English is a second language, that is going to be a factor on tests that geared toward that,” he said.

All students take the ISAT in English, which Hockett said can be difficult for bilingual learners.

“It would be like having us take an assessment in Russian testing our ability to read and comprehend,” she said.

Students can also be listed in multiple subgroups, so if a bilingual student who also has a learning disability is struggling, he or she will show up in multiple groups, which she said can skew results.

District officials also noted that under AYP students that are in second grade one year are being compared to students that were in second grade last year.

“It’s not apples to apples,” Hockett said. “We aren’t comparing the same group of students year after year.“

While the district has been improving, it is at a slower rate than required by AYP. In 2012, 92.5 percent of students will be expected to meet or exceed standards under No Child Left Behind, a number Hockett said will be hard to reach.

She said parents shouldn’t be too upset if their student goes to a “failing” school.

“None of us are arguing with accountability; we all want to be able to show that our students are progressing,” she said. “But the way the schools have been labeled and the way the sanctions have come down has not been the best or most equitable.”

The school board Thursday night will be looking at a cluster of students and how they progressed over several years to get another take on student achievement.