As Illinois student performance standards get tougher each year, more schools are falling short of the mark, according to statewide report cards released this week.

While most western suburb schools’ overall tests scores were well above the state requirements, the results show that in many cases low-income students and students with disabilities are below the standard.

The annual report cards track performance for the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This year’s reports for the roughly 4,000 schools and 869 districts in Illinois were posted online at iirc.niu.edu on Friday, Oct. 30.

Almost half of Kane County’s 160 schools did not make a passing grade this year, but most of those were in Aurora’s school districts or in Elgin’s School District U-46.

In the TriCities, just three of the 33 schools did not make the grade: Batavia Senior High School as well as St. Charles’ Thompson Middle and Richmond Elementary schools.

In all of the three schools, tests scores from students with disabilities fell below the state standard in math or reading.

The report cards are based on the results of two statewide tests, one taken from third to eighth grade and the other given during junior year of high school.

Each school’s report card shows how the entire student body did on the tests, and it breaks down the scores into smaller student demographics. These subgroups — based on race, socioeconomic status or other factors — are measured if a school has 45 or more students in the group.

For a school to achieve “adequate yearly progress,” a certain percent of the entire student body and each subgroup has to pass the bar in both math and reading. In 2009 the minimum is 70 percent.

Schools that continually fall short in the same subject face repercussions that become more rigorous as time goes on.

According to state law, after the first two years of not meeting adequate progress, a school is in “academic early watch status” and has to take steps to improve its scores. After the third year, the district steps in and helps create a “corrective action plan,” which could include lengthening the school day or year and bringing in an outside adviser.

If after four years the school still has not made adequate progress, the district has to draft a more intensive restructuring plan for the school, and that plan is put into place after five years of not making progress.

The state gives school districts several options for the fifth-year restructuring plan, such as reopening as a public charter school, replacing much of the teaching staff or overhauling the curriculum. School districts tend to go with that last option, said Melina Wright, the No Child Left Behind liaison for the Illinois State Board of Education.

Seven years after the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted, some schools still are not making progress even after the fifth-year restructuring. And the law does not require additional steps.

“The law is silent,” Wright said. “For whatever reason, the law does not address what happens beyond the restructuring phase.”

All schools, even those that passed this year, are trying to get their scores up. In future years, making the grade will become tougher.

Next year, 77.5 percent of students have to pass, and the goal is to have 100 percent of Illinois public school students passing by 2014.

St. Charles Community Unit School District 303 Superintendent Don Schlomann said though the district did not make adequate yearly progress, he was pleased with the results of the report.

“Overall, our progress has been upward,” Schlomann said. “We’ve especially seen some good gains at the high school level. You can’t base everything off one test.”

Schlomann said most districts struggle with expectations for special education and English as a second language students. He said it’s always a goal to have those students perform on the same level as everybody else, but it usually does not end up being the case.

“To expect a student to perform a level when they already have learning difficulties is something that’s hard to do,” Schlomann said. “With bilingual students, they don’t speak English as a native language, yet they are expected to take a test in English. Expecting them to perform at the same level is not realistic.”

He said he has heard about movement on the federal level to change expectations for these groups of students.

“It is kind of a moving target that you’re always trying to hit,” Schlomann said. “You always wonder what students you have to work with (in the district).”

(PROFILE OF ST. CHARLES DISTRICT 303)
St. Charles District 303 — Two high schools, three middle schools, twelve elementary schools
Enrollment: 13,809

Overall spending per student in 2007-08: $10,953

Adequate Yearly Progress: NO

Consecutive years did not make AYP: 2

Districtwide students meeting or surpassing standards: 90 percent

Groups that fell short: Limited English Proficiency and Students with Disabilities