Improvements in 2009-2010 test scores for Evanston Township High School were not enough to meet Illinois requirements for the No Child Left Behind Act, continuing the school’s streak of failure.
ETHS students have never met the requirements since the federal act became law in 2001. A school official called the law’s expectations “unrealistic.”
In the 2009-2010 school year, ETHS seniors achieved an average composite ACT score of 23.5, a record high for the school that placed them above the national average, according to an achievement report released by school officials earlier this month.
Illinois uses the Prairie State Achievement Examination to measure the achievement of high school juniors in reading, mathematics, science and writing. This consists of ACT scores and test scores of workplace readiness in areas such as reading and mathematics to determine whether school districts are meeting requirements.
ETHS did not meet the state goal of 77.5 percent of students meeting or exceeding requirements in 2010. The scores also indicated a gap of about 50 percent between the percentages of white students and black or Latino students meeting or exceeding the standards.
The difference in achievement between students of different ethnic groups is a serious problem, said Cherie Hansen, a co-president of the ETHS PTSA.
“There’s a huge gap, and even if you walk around the classrooms, you don’t see as many minorities in honors and [Advanced Placement classes],” Hansen said, “and if you get older and older, there are fewer and fewer minorities.”
June Cathcart Smith, another ETHS PTSA co-president and former ETHS teacher said, “ETHS is not meeting state requirements partly because of its diverse student body compared to other schools like New Trier Township High School.
“At our school, we have different cultures, and a lot of those kids are coming in with a language barrier,” said Smith. “Once they’ve learned the English language, they achieve very well, but at the time that they’re taking these tests and they’re grading our school, maybe that’s not the case.”
“The scores improved this year, but the goals set by the state are unrealistic,” said Judith Levinson, ETHS director of research, evaluation and assessment. The intent of the law is good, but the way the system has been set up is arbitrary, and the test used in Illinois is harder than those of other states.”
“It’s a very complex problem, improving kids’ performance, and there’s no silver bullet,” Levinson added.
Levinson cited the work of Robert Linn, a professor of education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who published a report in 2005 on the conflicting demands of NCLB and state systems. “If the goal for 2013–2014 remains unchanged, essentially all schools will fail to meet the unrealistic goal of 100 percent proficient or above, and No Child Left Behind will have turned into No School Succeeding,” Linn said in the report.
“The NCLB targets have helped instructors improve their teaching methods and have placed extra emphasis on measuring and reporting student performance,” ETHS English teacher John Stephenson said. “However, the goals are not achievable within the given time frame.
“Among the biggest flaws are the notions that test scores are the best measures and that test scores could change radically across the board and across the whole state. That’s different from asking if we are teaching better than we were 10 years ago.”
