State scores rise, but local schools spotty
Although state test scores edged up slightly this year, local high schools were a little more touch-and-go.
The Illinois State Board of Education made the yearly report cards public today, showing which schools were faltering and which were making progress on the students' test scores.
(Sun-Times Media File)
• Five area high schools among state's top 100
The report cards use scores from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test taken by elementary school students and the Prairie State Achievement Exam taken my 11th graders to determing if schools were meeting goals set by No Child Left Behind.
Statewide, both scores went up in 2009, with the PSAE going from 52.5 to 53 statewide. However, six local high schools -- East Aurora, West Aurora, Batavia, Oswego, Plano and Somonauk -- saw their scores drop.
Five high schools -- East Aurora, West Aurora, Yorkville, Plano and Somonauk -- had PSAE scores below the state average.
This is the second year since the state stopped letting students still learning English take the simple-English IMAGE test instead of the PSAE or ISAT.
West Aurora School District Assistant Superintendent Cynthia Latimer said this is a disservice to many students in her heavily Hispanic district.
"We're giving them a test in a language we know they can't speak, and we call them deficient," Latimer said.
Locally, the lowest PSAE score was 24.4 from East Aurora. The highest was 81.5 from St. Charles North.
Of 12 local school districts, only two -- Geneva and Kaneland -- made what the NCLB considers "adequate yearly progress." This means the students' scores hit the improvement targets set by the federal legislation.
Patty O'Neil, assistant superintendent for curriculum at the Geneva School District, credited teachers and principals with the district's success. Geneva was the only local district to make adequate yearly progress on both the district and high school levels.
"As we take a look at our test data each year, we say: 'Hey, are there areas we could beef up in terms of curriculum?'" O'Neil said.
Of 14 local public high schools reviewed, only three made adequate yearly progress, Geneva, St. Charles East and St. Charles North -- St. Charles East is still on academic early warning from the state. But since adequate yearly progress was met, the school stayed put, stuck in the first level of the gradient system.
It was one of 53 schools statewide that stayed put in improvement status because they made adequate yearly progress. You have to make adequate yearly progress for two years running to get taken off the list. That happened to 39 schools in the state this year.
Each year a school or district continues to miss adequate yearly progress, the status changes, as do the requirements from the state and federal government.
For example, Somonauk High School hasn't hit adequate yearly progress for two straight years. This put it on the state's Academic Early Warning Year 1 this year. The district must come up with a written improvement plan for the school. The warning level has no federal requirements.
East Aurora High School, however, is on the state Academic Watch Status Year 6 and is under restructuring implementation guidelines from the fed.
East Aurora officials did not return calls for comment Thursday.
Of the 14 local high schools, only four aren't under state or federal improvement guidelines.
Like Somonauk, Kaneland was also put on the state's academic early warning list for the first time this year, despite the fact it had the largest local jump in PSAE scores.
"The interesting thing is, when you look at the actual scores, we made significant improvement but the (adequate yearly progress) moved on us," Kaneland Superintendent Charles McCormick said.
Kaneland's PSAE scores jumped by 9.8 points, up to 64.5. But with higher adequate yearly progress standards this year, that number just wasn't enough.
"That would have put us I think one point over the (original) cut-off," McCormick said.
Somonauk's 2009 PSAE score of 40.8 is more than 20 points below where the district was two years ago.
"I know it's been a dramatic drop," said district Curriculum Director Jay Streicher.
Streicher said the 2007 score of 63 is the highest in the district's history. The 2008 score of 51.2 is more in line with the typical results, he said. The district is reworking the math curriculum to combat the falling scores.
