The graduation rate among Illinois students hit a historic high, of nearly 88%, last school year, as did student performance on literacy exams, state officials announced Wednesday upon the release of the 2024 Illinois Report Card.
“These milestones demonstrate that our investments in students are delivering real results as Illinois continues to bounce back stronger from the challenges set by the Pandemic,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a press release.
The Illinois State Board of Education’s annual release of school and district-level data also show significant improvement in key indicators of student success, including chronic absenteeism and the percentage of ninth-grade students on track to graduate. But, the data also show that Illinois students, like their peers across the country, continue to struggle in math.
A state math and numeracy plan, mirroring the spirit of the recently implemented Illinois Comprehensive Literacy Plan, is forthcoming, State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders told reporters at a media briefing last week.
“Our educators, students and families came together after the pandemic to just not recover, but also emerge stronger,” Sanders said of graduation and English proficiency rates that exceeded pre-pandemic levels. “But we still have work to do.”
Student performance and enrollment trends
The Report Card includes scores from the Illinois Assessment of Readiness — a statewide standardized test that measures 3rd through 8th graders’ skills in math and literacy, known as English Language Arts (ELA). When students’ scores meet state standards, their skills are considered proficient.
On average, 41% of Illinois elementary students met or exceeded literacy standards last year, while only 28% met or exceeded math standards.
For high school students, SAT scores included in the Report Card indicate 31% of students in grades 9-12 were proficient in ELA and 26% were proficient in math last year.
Enrollment demographics and teacher retention are among other metrics included in the public school data deep dive.
English Learners saw the largest increase in enrollment at 11.5%. But bilingual education is an area in which teacher shortages remain, though the overall number of teachers in the state has reached an all-time high, Sanders said. Shortages also exist in special education and rural and urban areas, he added, noting Illinois has received national recognition for its efforts to grow the profession through providing scholarships and other incentives.
District leaders who spoke with the Tribune also noted that while the wealth of data provides important transparency, the designations ISBE grants schools, as “Exemplary”, “Commendable” or “Targeted,” often don’t provide a complete picture of a school’s progress.
Crucial efforts that aren’t represented, according to some district leaders, include students’ rate of participation in extracurricular activities, social emotional learning opportunities and mental health supports provided to students.
“It doesn’t communicate to the public when schools are improving and they’re growing,” Superintendent Ben Collins of Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 said of the designations.
In the district in Northwest Cook County that Collins leads, ELA and math proficiency rates far exceed state averages and chronic absenteeism decreased by 2%, according to preliminary Report Card data.
“Some of our schools had some of their highest performance levels that they’ve had, and they are higher than some of the Exemplary schools, but they’re not rated that because of other factors,” Collins said.
‘We just don’t teach math very well’
Nine states have recently passed bills devoted to improving math instruction, according to Matt Weyer, Policy Director for the Education Commission of the States. Sparked by a decadelong dip in U.S. students’ math performance, seen in 2022 National Assessment of Education Progress scores, Weyer said state-level efforts vary, but tend to include curriculum oversight, increased diagnostic testing, teacher development and family engagement.
“Math is more important now for opportunity and for economic growth in a country than it has ever been,” said Deborah Stipek, a professor emerita at Stanford University who researches math instruction. But, “We just don’t teach math very well,” she added, noting that the US ranked 27th among 38 countries in a 2022 international assessment of students’ math skills.
Rather than teaching math via open-ended problem solving and real-world applications, a predominant focus on rules results in “fragile” learning, Stipek said. “It falls apart very easily when you’re put into novel situations where the rule doesn’t apply exactly the way you learned it in school.”
Among policies and initiatives states can develop to impact math performance, she emphasized investing in teachers. “And we always underestimate how much support teachers need.”
High math scores, high degree of collaboration
For the last decade, in Frankfort School District 157-C, Superintendent Doug Wernet said educators have taken a collaborative and systematic approach to helping students understand math concepts early.
The Will Co. district of elementary students had among the highest average math proficiency rates, just below 70%, last year, according to preliminary Report Card data.
Among overarching trends in this year’s Report Card, ISBE officials noted gains among upper grades tends to lag behind growth among elementary school students.“If those foundational skills are not developed in the early elementary ages, we’re going to see that student struggle throughout the grade levels,” Wernet said.
Wernet noted students have less time to practice math – compared to the English language skills students develop across a variety of subjects – and that it’s more difficult to stay on track, as math curriculum builds upon prior concepts. “That’s where you use all your expertise, your systems in place, to catch students who are struggling and support them along the way.”
Frankfort educators in the same grade level or subject matter meet daily or weekly for shared planning time, to collaborate over curricula, teaching and tests – and they also meet separately with instructional coaches, or veteran teachers dedicated to developing other educators, Wernet said of what he calls collaborative learning cohorts.
“You get a team of math teachers together, and they’re responding to student data as it pertains to a particular set of skills in the math unit, and they’re going to share their expertise, collaborate, learn from each other, and devise a plan to continuously try to support students throughout the unit,” he said.
The Frankfort district has a 93% teacher retention rate. Wernet credits the longevity of staff administrators, as well as the support of the local community in the predominantly white and affluent district, with making students’ performance possible.
At the state-level, Sanders said Illinois’ ongoing implementation of a 2017 school funding reform can help to bring added support to districts which need it.
Rising literacy scores among increased English learners
Given the increased enrollment of English learners statewide, Collins, the Park Ridge D-64 superintendent, said his district was happy to see newcomer students’ progress in English Language Arts.
“As those students enter into our public education systems, obviously, when they can access learning, they do really well. And so we need to find ways that they can access learning in their home language and then increase their proficiency towards English,” he said, adding that bilingual education has moved from the margins of public education topics to center stage.
“Depending on (students’) level of literacy in their home language and their level of understanding of English, that is all going to play into a much more complicated formula for the things that our teachers and our systems can do for those students,” Collins said.
Chronic Absenteeism
With the exception of one of the district’s eight schools, chronic absenteeism in D-64 fell across the board, after spiking across the country during the pandemic.
Research shows attendance is a crucial factor in student achievement, with chronic lost days of school associated with poor outcomes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The statewide average chronic absenteeism rate is 26% – and less than 9% in the Park Ridge district, according to preliminary Report Card data. “I was really happy with the relationships that our building leaders and teachers have built with families to see those numbers improve across the board,” Collins said. “A lot of times it’s just communicating with families the importance of what it means to be in school as much as possible.”
Avoiding ‘catch-up’
Like chronic absenteeism, the percentage of ninth grade students on track to graduate serves as a key indicator of a student’s longterm success. For Tom Moore, superintendent of Niles Township High Schools District 219, the metric has long been a north star.
More than 91% of Niles freshmen were on track to graduate last year, an increase of nearly 10% over the previous year. Preliminary Report Card data show the state average is 88%.
“Any of the transition years in education are hugely important…when you shift schools, when all of a sudden you have new friends, when maybe the person that you were close to before doesn’t go to the same school, and now you’re trying to find out your identity, who you are in a new environment,” Moore said. “It’s so important that we have all the supports in place, because that’s the one year they don’t have an adult they know yet.”
Niles educators review grades at the end of the first quarter to identify Freshman who may be struggling, as those who’ve received Ds or Fs. “You can’t just let it go,” Moore said of individual connections educators attempt to make with each student from there. “That’s really the thing about freshman year, trying to find the adults that those kids can connect with, so they can speak honestly and they have that relationship so that they can make a clear path for their own future.”
Otherwise, it’s much harder for students to explore electives and internships that can spark career interests. “Statistically, if you’re not on track after ninth grade, you begin playing catch up,” Moore said, noting that remedial courses take time away from opportunities to explore more compelling subjects.
But, he said the district is lively, noting that the number of English learners in the district has doubled. “I love the kids here,” he said. “It’s easy to get downhearted, to get disenchanted, to feel nervous about the future and…you walk the hallways with kids from different backgrounds together, laughing, talking in class, playing on the same teams, being in music together, and it just makes you think, ‘Nope, great things are possible, and they’re possible because of our kids.’”
