Fewer Illinois students taking standardized exams

Middle school students in the district tended to do as well or better in math compared to the state average.

Teacher Carolyn Brown said that faculty and staff “were really intentional about giving honest and accurate information about the test and not using some of the bully tactics we saw at other schools”.

Preliminary results released in September showed that the vast majority of IL students had failed the new test. The statewide average was 28.2 percent in math and 37.7 percent in English.

Boasberg did say that achievement gaps between low-income students and their wealthier peers continue to widen. The test, which measures how well children have learned tough new Common Core standards, replaced the Illinois Standards Achievement Test and Prairie State Achievement Examination and was longer and more in-depth than prior tests.

Eight months after IL students took a new, more rigorous test based on the controversial Common Core standards, district and school administrators are just getting a look at the results. Hankins made it easy on parents, providing a form letter on the district website for opting students out of tests.

In other words, the more affluent suburban districts with large student populations had far more students skip the tests, but a greater proportion of students at those rural districts opted out of them. In the spring, a shorter test in one session will be given, he said. “But don’t forget that it’s a different type of test and the standards have…the bar has been risen”, said the interim superintendent of Peoria District 150, Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat.

Kilrea said the validity and comparison usefulness of the PARCC data is “highly questionable” for several reasons. Most didn’t even have 40 percent. IL schools must prove that 95 percent of eligible students took the test or the school districts could face sanctions. Thompson had the fifth highest rate of refusals of the state’s 178 districts.

“Parents have patiently waited for the standardized testing movement to get to the right amount of tests and the right tests and the right experience for their children, and I think their level of frustration has steadily grown because they haven’t seen movement in the right direction in their opinion”, said Douglas County Superintendent Liz Fagen.

A criticism of No Child Left Behind has always been state testing.

Among the changes is an additional performance level for individual student scores for those who are considered “approaching” state standards, but not failing.

They show approximately 44,000 students never took the language portion of the test, and about 42,000 didn’t take the math portion.