Scores go up and down, leave students out
By Lisa Ashkenaz Croke
Special to Inside
Two northeast Chicago elementary schools listed as failing under the Federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) illustrate the complexities and expose the anomalies of requiring every public school student, regardless of race, financial status, disability, or English proficiency, to meet 100 percent state math and reading standards by the 2013-2014 school year.
Citing space shortages and a desire to best utilize NCLB federal government funding, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) made arrangements with Washington to cut back on the number of schools eligible to transfer. The poor alternatives for transfer students can also be linked to supplemental local rules restricting transfers to schools within a three-mile radius.
Both Greeley Elementary School, 832 W. Sheridan Rd. in Lake View, and Uptown’s McCutcheon Elementary School, 4850 N. Kenmore Ave., made the list of schools from which transfers are possible. Only McCutcheon students were offered the option to transfer. Under the NCLB, when low-performing schools fail to show adequate progress for two years in a row, the students there are eligible to transfer to a higher performing school. After five years of steadily declining scores, a school may be closed.
The Illinois State Achievement Test (ISAT) scores measure for the NCLB standards. The test covering reading and math has been given to third, fifth and eighth graders in this state since 1999.
After showing a steady decline in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards from 1999 to 2001, McCutcheon Elementary School was put into a Pilot Cluster program with three alternate schools. Seventeen students sought transfers to these schools; 14 were admitted.
However, an examination of ISAT results from 1999 to 2001 not only reveals these alternate schools could be one test away from the failing list themselves, but that under the criteria of NCLB, they should have been so designated this year.
None of the alternate schools show a steady progress in student achievement over two years, and in one case no improvement is shown at all.
McPherson Elementary School, 4728 N. Wolcott Ave., failed to demonstrate any improvement in students meeting reading standards during three years of testing. Though an average of 10 percent more McPherson fifth graders achieved reading standards than at McCutcheon, the alternate school bested the failing school by less than one percent in third grade reading scores.
Another alternate in the cluster, Stewart Elementary School, 4850 N. Kenmore Ave., also failed to make consecutive yearly progress. Both third grade reading and math scores dropped from 1999 to 2000 then rose in 2001, but over 40 percent of students still failed to meet standards in both areas. Fifth grade reading scores rose four percent in 2000 but then dropped eight percent the next year. By 2001, 74 percent of Stewart fifth graders failed to meet reading standard, compared to 69 percent at McCutcheon.
More damaging, fifth grade math scores dropped in the first two years resulting in 63 percent of students failing to meet standards in 2000, which was maintained in 2001.
The third alternate, Trumbull Elementary School, 5200 N. Ashland Ave., compared most favorably, though it only demonstrated adequate yearly improvement in one area, eighth grade reading scores. Third grade reading and math scores had increased by 2000 but decreased the following year; eighth grade reading scores showed a similar pattern. Meanwhile, fifth grade reading and math scores showed the opposite; large declines from 1999 to 2000 but even greater rebounds by 2001.
According to NCLB progress standards, all of these schools should be listed as failing.
NCLB gives failing schools with high percentages of students living in poverty priority when determining transfer eligibility; student poverty rates for all the schools discussed in this article range from 85 to over 95 percent. None of the schools is overcrowded.
Over 90 percent of the student body at Greeley Elementary School, where students were not given the transfer option, live in poverty. While the school does outperform transfer-eligible McCutcheon in third grade reading and math results (with 53 and 73 percent of its students meeting or exceeding standards), it is five percent behind McCutcheon in fifth grade reading averages and seven percent behind in fifth grade math.
However, by eighth grade, reading averages for Greeley showed 71 percent of students meeting standards, likely a result of an accelerated language program begun by the fourth grade. Unfortunately, the progress made from 2000 to 20001 was only one percent, not enough to guarantee 100 percent compliance by the 2013-2014 school year.
Interestingly, Greeley shows continuous improvement in more areas than any of the other schools examined in this article. While only third grade reading scores demonstrated adequate yearly progress, reading scores were up for all grades tested.
The NCLB gives local and state leeway to comprise their list of failing schools. State and city tinkering with the law resulted in revised lists; each decreased the number of schools designated as failing as the 2002-2003 school year approached.
In March of this year, ISBE listed 390 Chicago public schools where less than 50 percent of their students failed to meet ISAT standards. That number was reduced to 232 when ISBE revised the list to those not meeting “progress goals” for 2000 and 2001. In mid July, it was announced that a list of 179 schools would be sent to the federal government for failing to meet adequate yearly progress. That list included both Greeley and McCutcheon as schools eligible to transfer students. |
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