Schools under pressure

Local teachers say they feel grind of higher test score bar

An autistic student. A student from Poland who can barely speak English. A dyslexic student. An academically advanced student.

What do they all have in common? Each has to take a standardized test under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

That law now requires that 70 percent of all students -- including those in subgroups such as special needs and English language learner students -- meet or exceed math and reading standards. Last year, 62.5 percent were required under the law to make "adequate yearly progress" or AYP in meeting those standards. By 2014, all students are expected to make AYP.

If one of those subgroups doesn't make AYP, the entire school fails to make it. If one tier of grade levels -- elementary school, middle school or high school -- doesn't make AYP, the entire district doesn't achieve AYP.

That was the case this year for Elgin School District U46, Carpentersville-based Community Unit School District 300, Burlington-based Community Unit School District 301 and St. Charles-based Community Unit School District 303. Those test scores were released today.

Even though U46 students' performance on standardized tests remained fairly stable, it wasn't enough to meet the rising bar of the NCLB Act.

"We've made progress," said Ed DeYoung, a consultant who oversees the district's assessment system. "But we haven't achieved NCLB] standards."

While students in Community Unit School District 300 scored their highest results ever on state standardized tests, those results at some district] schools still lag behind the adequate yearly progress.

Many local teachers and principals say the rule of every subgroup making AYP is "nonsense." They claim it is not the schools failing, but rather the law is failing schools.

Still, teachers are under pressure from higher-ups to help every student, regardless of their disadvantage, reach the same academic bar.

With almost every school district in the state struggling financially, teachers are sweating over their jobs. These state standardized tests just exacerbate teachers' headaches, according to many local teachers and principals.

"The whole thing is so ridiculous," said Alan Jurgensen, a seventh-grade teacher at Canton Middle School in Streamwood. "They label us a failure because of two subgroups, and that's just not fair at all."

He said his school hasn't made AYP for the past five years because of its two subgroups -- the special education population and the nonnative English-speaking population.

"It's like telling a gym teacher to get all of his kids to run a mile between four and six minutes. It's not going to happen," Jurgensen continued. "One year, you'll get a good crop of kids who are bright and another year, you'll get a crop that's not so good. You take what's handed to you. You can't expect miracles."

He said administration from the federal government down to school principals use the "scare tactic of 'you're the next to go'" if you don't get your students to make AYP.

According to Brian Przybylski, a math teacher at Larkin High School in Elgin, that's because "administrators think that the scores represent our school. It does not."

Jeff King, the principal of Gilberts Elementary School, agreed that the state standardized tests cause ulcers for some teachers.

"The test puts a lot of pressure on the students and staff. I don't worry. I just try to keep the rest of the staff and students calm," King said. "I have teachers who lose sleep over it. I have teachers who get headaches during the week of exams."

Despite gaining 10 percent on its reading scores and scoring in the 90th percentile in math, he said his school, like Canton, "fell victim to the subgroup rule." The special education population didn't make AYP, so the school didn't make it.

The way in which the test holds teachers solely accountable is wrong too, teachers say.

"I think we as a school look at the tests as a necessary evil," Larkin's Przybylski said. "They do show the public what is happening at the schools, but to hold teachers accountable is absurd."

"NCLB is a great reformer. However, since it is unfunded and only punitive, it does little to promote success, and it also puts full blame on the educational system and none on parents," he said. "There needs to be accountability on the home, not just the school."

But it's those parents from whom teachers feel the heat at test time.

Nikki Woodbury, an English teacher and state standardized test coordinator at Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville, said she definitely feels the pressure to reflect to the community that kids are learning.

"I think it's pressure that you feel from the community and from people in the building. You feel like you're not doing your job. But we are. There are so many things we are doing," Woodbury said. "At the end of the day, it's one day. It's a test."

Also, "There are a number of students who could care less about testing," Przybylski said. "It does make the job challenging."

Yet to teach to standardized tests is "unethical," according to Przybylski.

"The fact that I hear grade-school teachers complain they cannot teach as much science or social studies is criminal," he said. "Public education is for the public. Certain untested education is needed for a student to become a functioning part of society."

"Chicago public schools have less than 60 percent graduate from high school," Przybylski pointed out. "Teaching to a test as opposed to teaching for life is questionable at best, and for the 40 percent of CPS students, it is a waste of time. Not every student is going to college."

Staff writer Emily McFarlan contributed to this report.