Schools

Fewer Than 60 Percent of Illinois Schoolchildren Proficient in Math and Reading

New Illinois School Report Card released today reveals scary reality as standards rise and scores drop.

By Matt Dietrich
Reboot Illinois


If you’re prone to alarm, there’s plenty of cause for it in the annual School Report Card released today for Illinois public schools.

Only 59 percent of Illinois grade school students met or exceeded state standards for math and reading proficiency.  High school students taking the  Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE) averaged 52 percent proficiency in reading, math and science.

Both represent drastic drops from last year’s scores, but that’s deceptive. Last year’s 83 percent proficiency among elementary schools students was based on lax standards that, when raised for this year’s testing, gave a realistic assessment of student achievement.

So we shouldn’t be alarmed about the precipitous drop in scores. We should be alarmed that we’ve been deceiving ourselves for years about the quality of education we’re providing for our kids.

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Even more alarming is the disparity between affluent and poor students, whose schools scored well below even the new, realistic benchmarks for proficiency.

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