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The Examiner U-46 News Feed

State report card shows general decline in U-46


By Seth Hancock
  The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has released its annual report card, and School District U-46 continues to see scores trending downward.
  The district presented the data to the Board of Education at a special meeting on Monday, Oct. 29, a few days prior to the Oct. 31 release of the report card by the state. The district lagged behind the state and saw a drop from last year’s numbers in nearly every data point.
  There are new data points as well as a new way to rank schools in this year’s report card with the advent of the new so-called “evidence based” funding formula. Each school is designated as one of four categories: exemplary, commendable, underperforming and lowest performing.
  There was some concern that things could change between the meeting and the state’s release, but ultimately they came out the same with no U-46 schools designated in the top category (exemplary) and none in the bottom (lowest performing) while a majority of its schools, 45, listed as commendable and eight as underperforming.
  U-46 CEO Tony Sanders said “we still have questions” and “it’s kind of gone back and forth for right over the last week and a half, two weeks,” and he added that at one point the district had only one school labeled underperforming. He said next year, each school will receive a letter grade on both growth and growth relative to peer schools.
  Josh Carpenter, assistant superintendent, said that proficiency scores have been released by the state for each school while index and growth scores for each have not, and there’s been no timeline given for release of that data.
  Each school will be measured on several data points, the largest for elementary and middle schools being 50 percent based on growth and 20 percent on their chronic absenteeism rate and for high schools 50 percent based on graduation rate and 20 percent for proficiency in English and math.
  The ISBE has set a goal that every school eventually is at 90 percent among these categories: Third graders at reading level, freshmen on track for graduation, fifth graders meeting or exceeding expectations in math and graduates ready for college or career.
  On the PARCC test, 26 percent of U-46 students met or exceeded expectations in both English and math which is down from 28 percent in math each year from 2015 to 2017 and from 36 percent in 2015, 31 percent in 2016 and 28 percent in 2017 in English. The state was at 37 percent in English and 32 percent in math in 2018.
  On the SAT, which the state recently changed to shifting from the ACT, 29 percent (behind 37 percent for the state and down from 32 percent last year) of U-46 students taking the exam met or exceeded expectations in English and 28 percent (behind the state’s 34 percent and down from 29 percent last year) in math. The district’s average SAT score was 486.2 in English (505.7 state) and 482.8 in math (501.4 state). Last year, the district’s average score was 493.2 in English and 486.2 in math.
  The district’s four-year graduation rate was 84 percent (85 percent state), down from 86 percent the last four years. The five-year rate was 87 percent (88 percent state) from 89 percent in 2017, 88 percent in 2016 and 2015 and 84 percent in 2014. The six-year rate was 89 percent (88 percent state), the same as in 2017 and up from 88 percent in 2016.
  Freshmen deemed on track was 80.8 percent for U-46, 86.8 percent for the state. In U-46 it was 81 percent in 2017, 82 percent in 2016, 85 percent in 2015 and 96 percent in 2014.
  The district had a chronic absenteeism rate of 21 percent, 17 percent state, which is defined by the ISBE as “a student who misses 10 percent of school days within an academic year with or without a valid excuse.”
  Carpenter attributed most of the absenteeism to the “upper grades” and Laura Hill, director of assessment and accountability, said: “It’s a new piece of data for all of us…. We really need to understand and engage with that piece of data.”
  Sanders said the district is looking at the school calendar saying the focus will not be on parent feedback, which he called “subjective data,” but “really looking at well what are the days that students actually attend school.”
  The district’s chronic truancy, defined as missing “5 percent of school days… without a valid excuse” by the ISBE, rate was 13.6 percent while the state was at 11 percent. In U-46 it was 12 percent last year, 9 percent in 2016 and 6 percent in 2015 and 2014.
  On the Maps test, given to students with cognitive disabilities, 16 percent in U-46 (22 percent state) were at-target or advanced in English down from 17, 21 and 34 percent respectively over the previous three years. In math the district saw a slight tick up from last year going from 7 to 8 percent but still down from 13 percent in 2016 and 14 percent in 2015. The state was at 10 percent in math this year.
  On the Illinois Science Assessment, 38 percent of U-46 students were deemed proficient behind 51 percent for the state and down from 42 percent in U-46 the previous year.
  The district has seen some declines in two Advance Placement categories, number of students completing a course (6,191 from 6,362) and unique AP students (2,895 from 2,905), but increases in exams given (3,920 from 3,725), unique students tested (2,015 from 1,931), passed test (1,900 from 1,860) and unique students with 3+ score (1,111 from 1,100). The number of AP Scholars dropped from 442 to 418.
  U-46 graduates have seen a decline in how many require remedial courses in college, 54 percent of the class of 2016 from 60 percent of the class of 2013. From last year’s graduating class, 64.5 percent have enrolled in college or university.
  While the academic results have largely trended in a negative direction, the district has seen its per student spending annually rise with a total increase between instructional and operational spending of $2,579 from 2013 to 2017 according to the state’s data which is $1,702 over the rate of inflation according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.
  The annual budget increases have also come despite declining enrollment since 40,400 students in 2015 down to 38,764 according to the ISBE report. The district gave an enrollment presentation on Nov. 5 showing it was even lower, 38,572, than the ISBE’s number.
  The report card also claims U-46 is only at 55 percent adequately funded, Sanders claiming the district should be spending $800 million. The Fiscal Year 2019 budget sets spending at $558.1 million.
  The board did discuss several issues at the meeting, from standardized testing to district finances, and in the coming weeks The Examiner will report on those discussions.

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