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THE NEWS-GAZETTE Sunday, November 4, 2007
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Mahomet-Seymour High School, according to a list last week in the Chicago Sun-Times, ranked 49th among the top-scoring public high schools in Illinois. The list was dominated by schools in wealthy suburbs (Winnetka, Hinsdale, Deerfield, Highland Park, Wheaton, Geneva and others) and by Chicago magnet schools, although there were a few other downstate schools, notably Monticello (tied for No. 41).
Mahomet-Seymour was ranked based on student scores on the Prairie State Achievement Exam, an Illinois-only standard test given in 11th grade. Its students met or exceeded the state standard in the math (69.6 percent) and reading (69.6) portions of the PSAE. That's an impressive number, but it should be noted that the Mahomet-Seymour district doesn't face the demographic challenges that plague more urban districts, including Danville, Decatur, Champaign, Urbana, Springfield and Peoria.
While Mahomet-Seymour's percentage of low-income students is 6.5 percent, Urbana High School's is a shocking 48.3 percent (up from 27.3 percent just eight years ago) and Danville's is 46.4 percent. Decatur MacArthur's is 57.1 percent and Springfield Lanphier's is 61.5 percent. In Champaign, Central High School is 39.3 percent and Centennial is 26.7 percent low income. Income is an important factor because less well-off students often work outside of school, may not get as much parental support and frequently have a more difficult home life.
Many of those more urban schools also report high mobility rates; that is, the percentage of students who move into or out of a school in an academic year. That kind of turnover not only disrupts the student directly affected, but teachers and other students. The mobility rate at Urbana was 24.8 percent, was 29.3 percent at Rantoul Township High School, was 29.4 percent at Central and 34.9 percent at Danville. At Mahomet-Seymour, meanwhile, it was 2.8 percent.
All of this is to say that ACT test scores compiled by some of those urban high schools — particularly on what is arguably a more meaningful achievement test — are impressive.
Consider these ACT composite scores for the nine public high schools in Champaign County: Champaign Centennial, 22; Mahomet-Seymour, 21.9; Urbana, 21.8; St. Joseph-Ogden, 21.7; Heritage, 21.4; Champaign Central, 21.1; Fisher, 20.4; Unity, 20.2 and Rantoul, 18.8. The Champaign high schools, according to Dorland Norris, deputy superintendent of the Champaign district, were cited by ACT for encouraging students to take a more rigorous curriculum that could lead to better test scores.
Other area high school composite ACT scores were: Monticello, 21.8; Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley, 21.4; Charleston, 21.4; Arcola 21.3; Cissna Park, 20.9; Villa Grove, 20.8; Catlin, 20.7; Mattoon, 20.7; Arthur, 20.6; Clinton, 20.5; Hoopeston Area, 20.4; Iroquois West, 20.4; Watseka, 20.4; Tuscola, 20.3; Paxton-Buckley-Loda, 20.2; Bement, 20.2; Blue Ridge, 20; Oakland, 19.7; Atwood-Hammond, 19.6; Westville, 19.4; Oakwood, 19.3; Deland-Weldon, 19.2; Georgetown-Ridge Farm, 19.1; Jamaica, 19; Armstrong, 18.8; Cerro Gordo, 18.8; Bismarck-Henning, 18.4; Danville, 18.4.
In Illinois, the average state composite score was 20.3. Nationally it was 21.2. That latter number is misleading; more on that later.
The ACT (which measures English, math, reading and science learning) is considered by some to be a more useful measure than Illinois; PSAE (which also is developed by ACT) because it is a national test (although the percentage of students taking it, by state, varies from 100 percent to 9 percent), and is treated more seriously by high school students for a couple of reasons: its results may affect their possible choice of colleges (the PSAE doesn't), and it is taken a day before the PSAE test, when students' minds are apt to be more fresh and focused.
There still is no move toward a nationwide standardized test for all high school students — a move that would upset those insistent about “local control” but which would make it easier to accurately measure student achievement on that clichéd “level playing field.”
Still, more states are moving in that direction. Until recently, Illinois and Colorado were the only states to require all high school students (regardless of whether they’re going to college) to take the ACT. Michigan added the requirement last year and Kentucky and Wyoming are doing so this year, according to Ed Colby, a spokesman for the ACT. In Wyoming, students can take either the ACT or the ACT-sponsored “workKey” test that measures workplace skills.
“Other states are looking at (requiring the ACT) in various stages,” Colby said. “We think it’s likely there will be others.”
llinois’ average composite ACT score of 20.5 is below the national average because all students here must take it. That dampens Illinois’ average in comparison to a state like Massachusetts, where the average composite is 23.5, but where only 15 percent of students take the test.
Meanwhile, locally most schools do about as well on the PSAE as they do on the ACT. At Centennial, for example, 60.2 percent of students met or exceeded the state standard in math and 61.2 percent did so in reading. At Central, the percentages were 55.5 percent and 55.9 percent. At St. Joseph-Ogden they were 62.1 percent and 71.6 percent.
But at Urbana, where ACT scores were above average, PSAE scores were low: 52.2 percent for reading and 44.1 percent for math.
And at Danville and Rantoul all scores were low. At Danville the PSAE percentages were 42.7 percent for reading and 37.7 percent for math. At Rantoul the percentages — 37.2 percent in reading and 38.9 percent in math — were among the lowest in the state.
Tom Kacich is a News-Gazette editor and columnist. His column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Emphasis by Jacobs' Landing.
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