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BY CAROLE SHARWARKO Hopefully, your high school student can read this story. According to the 2007 Illinois State Report Card released last week, reading scores among our state's students dropped from last year, while math and science scores stayed stagnant. About one-third of Illinois school districts failed to meet the adequate yearly progress required by the No Child Left Behind Act, and schools in the south suburbs fell in line with that trend. Twenty-two out of 52 Southland school systems made adequate yearly progress under NCLB guidelines. Those that didn't include Lincoln Way-Community High School District 210, Community Consolidated School District 230, Bremen High School District 228, Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School District 233 and Community High School District 218. The picture of the state's education comes from combining all scores earned by students on certain standardized tests. Students in third through eighth grades take the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, and high school juniors take the Prairie State Achievement Exam. Illinois State Superintendent of Education Christopher Koch said in a conference call that the failure of high school students to read at an acceptable level "is a problem, and it shouldn't happen." "A 20-point disparity between the high school and elementary level shows something is happening at the middle school level," Koch said. "That's why we've invested in early childhood education. The earlier the intervention, the better our chances to improve skills." Among the Southland's more successful elementary districts: o Matteson School District 162, where 81 percent of students met or exceeded state test score standards o Summit Hill School District 161, where 89.2 percent met or exceeded state standards o Orland School District 135, where 91.6 met or exceeded state standards o Flossmoor School District 161, where 87.4 percent met or exceeded state standards o New Lenox School District 122, where 89 percent met or exceeded state standards. In order to make AYP, schools and districts must have enough students meeting a testing threshold. If a school or district doesn't make it one year, it has a bigger challenge the following year because the threshold rises. In 2006, 55 percent of students had to meet standards for schools and districts to meet AYP. To make AYP for 2007, 62.5 percent of students had to make it. In 2014, all students are supposed to meet the standard. Grouping at a disadvantage Lincoln-Way Community High School District 210 didn't make it this year, just like last year. And Supt. Lawrence Wyllie said the reason remains the same. "It's the subgroups that are the issue," Wyllie said. "The government expects subgroups of special-education students to meet and exceed the same percentage as other kids." Students with learning or intellectual disabilities take the same tests as other students. Though their score threshold is lower, Wyllie said, a percentage of them must still meet the No Child Left Behind threshold. Wyllie said about 12 percent of the 6,100 Lincoln-Way students fall into the special-education sub-group. Of the general population, 72 percent met the standards. "I think the way No Child Left Behind is set up, I don't see how anyone can steer clear," he said. "I don't think anyone can make it with subgroups included." Overall, Wyllie said No Child Left Behind makes schools sit up and pay attention, which is a good thing. But lumping all students together makes it nearly impossible to meet its standards. 'Destined to fail' Community High School District 218 Supt. John Byrne said he is, of course, unhappy about his district not making AYP, but he didn't sound surprised. "The way it's set up, every school in Illinois is destined to fail," Byrne said. "I can picture the bigger schools going down this year without a doubt. It's not an if, it's a when." Byrne said the constantly increasing standards will catch up to even the wealthiest schools with traditionally high performance. Still, he said it's unfair to compare schools. "All school districts don't have the same demographic of kids enrolled," Byrne said. "In a district like Lincolnshire, you have families with incomes above $200,000, mom stays at home, they have no trouble putting food on the table. We get different types of customers, so it's hard to put that same requirement on us." Likewise, intangible social support differs among communities. Some kids didn't grow up with parks, Little League or strong neighborhood ties. Like Wyllie, Byrne said he likes the principle of NCLB but called it a "big Band-Aid." He would prefer a system that encourages more collaborative standard-setting. "If we were all building cars, we could all do the same," he said. "But these aren't things. They're people." |
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