Rockford makes record gains on 2008 achievement tests; racial performance gap narrows
SEPTEMBER 23, 2008 - Superintendent Linda Hernandez announced today that results of 2008 standardized achievement testing show a record number of Rockford Public Schools students met or exceeded grade-level standards in reading and math.
Of 14,043 students who took the Illinois Standards Achievement Test or the Prairie State Achievement Examination, 9,030 students - or 64.3 percent -- performed at or above grade level. That's approximately 500 more students than met state standards in 2007 and represents the highest total ever for Rockford. Students in third through eighth grades take the ISAT, while the PSAE is given to high school juniors.
Many schools posted double-digit gains in student performance, and the progress made by black and Hispanic students resulted in a significant reduction in racial achievement gaps. The achievement margin between white and black students in elementary schools narrowed 7.4 percent in math and 5.9 percent in reading. The gap for white and Hispanic students also narrowed 7.4 percent in math in elementary schools; Hispanic students at Nashold Elementary School outperformed white students by 8.3 percent in math.
Student performance was strong enough to completely remove Haskell Elementary School from seven years on various state and federal academic watch or warning lists. Among many gains at Haskell, reading scores for black students improved from 45.8 percent meeting standards in 2007 to 51.1 percent meeting standards in 2008.
"I've worked here long enough to have seen times when some schools barely had 10 percent of their students meeting the standards," said Hernandez, who became Superintendent at the start of the 2007-2008 school year and oversaw preparation for testing that took place in March and April. "For a school to move its numbers even 2 or 3 percent isn't easy and takes a lot of hard work. To see increases of 10 and almost 20 percent makes me as excited about the state of our schools as I have ever been."
Marcia Strothoff, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, attributes the 2008 successes to an intensive focus on meeting the needs of individual students whose performance in 2007 prevented subgroups from meeting standards. Examples of double-digit testing gains in 2008 include:
Reading scores for black students at Brookview Elementary School increased 19 points over 2007, the best performance ever by that subgroup at that school. Reading scores for black students at Stiles Elementary School climbed 15.4 percent over 2007, also an all-time high. The performance of black students at Lathrop Elementary School improved 14 points in reading and 19 points in math - record achievement levels in both subjects.
Reading scores for low-income students jumped 15 percent at Thompson Elementary School and 10 percent at New Milford Elementary School.
Students at Maria Montessori School posted record gains in all applicable subgroups in reading; elementary students at Washington and Welsh also earned across-the-board high marks in reading.
In math, Brookview and Walker Elementary School saw their highest scores ever in all subgroups. At Walker, Hispanic students outperformed white students in math by 11 points.
Flinn Middle School made record advances in all subgroups in reading and math; Kennedy Middle School also posted record gains in every subgroup except achievement by white students in reading. At the middle school level, the black-white achievement gap narrowed 2.1 percent in reading and 1.6 percent in math.
Mrs. Hernandez presented 2008 testing results in a report to the Board of Education, which can be viewed here in these formats: |
