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CPS "Requests" Changes To 2008 High School Composite Scores For more information contact:
Mike Vaughn
CPS Office of Communications
(773) 553-1624—direct
(773) 553-1620—office
E-mail: mvaughn@cps.k12.il.us
Website: www.cps.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 3, 2008
High School Students Post Gains on State Standardized Tests
Math, Reading Scores on
WorkKeys Jump; Increases Also on ACT in Science, Reading
Chicago
public high school students posted gains on most of the standardized
tests administered by the state in 2008. The gains on individual components
of the annual Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE)—which is the combination
of the ACT assessments , the WorkKeys workplace-readiness assessments,
and a state-written science test—came despite the requirement this
year that non-English-speaking students take the regular exam instead
of a separate test designed for them.
“We
saw gains in the majority of the tests given by the state to our high
school students,” CPS Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan said. “That’s
the result of the hard work of our students and teachers, and I want
to thank and commend them for that. Now, we need to work harder to push
the gains higher and across all subjects.”
Specifically,
CPS students posted a gain of 4.8 percentage points on the WorkKeys
reading test and gained one-tenth of a scale-score point on the ACT
reading exam, compared to the previous year’s scores on those tests.
The
score on the math WorkKeys test rose 4.1 percentage points from last
year, and the average ACT math score dropped just one-tenth of a scale-score
point.
In
science, students scored two-tenths of a scale score point higher on
average on the ACT, and the average score on the state-written science
test dropped 0.4 scale-score points.
On the English component of the ACT, the average score dropped two-tenths of a scale-score point.
--more--
These
individual testing components are combined together by the state to
compute the PSAE composite scores. And the method that the Illinois
State Board of Education is using to put those composite PSAE scores
together was changed for the 2008 tests. The federal government required
the change in the PSAE scoring in order to ensure the tests align closely
to state standards, and it resulted in the individual tests being weighted
differently than last year when computing the composite PSAE scores.
“ISBE
has attempted to use a statistical methodology to link the new set of
PSAE scale scores to the old ones. We believe the new PSAE scores are
different from the old ones and that valid comparisons between 2008
data and previous years cannot be made,” Duncan added. “We had several
schools that saw gains in both the ACT and WorkKeys scores but declines
in their PSAE score. We also have other schools that saw the opposite
happen: ACT and WorkKeys scores dipped individually, but the PSAE score
increased. We have suggested that ISBE re-score the previous years’
PSAE data using the new methodology, and we are asking ISBE to provide
2008 PSAE scores using the 2007 methodology so that we can truly measure
student progress over time. And we understand that this new methodology
will create a new baseline score that we’ll use to measure our progress
going forward.”
As
a result of the new scoring system, the CPS’s overall PSAE composite
score is now 27.2 percent of students meeting or exceeding state standards.
The PSAE composite reading score is now 30 percent meeting or exceeding
state standards; the PSAE composite math score is 27.8 percent; and
the PSAE composite science score is 23.9 percent.
“We
still have a lot of work to do to get our high school scores where they
need to be,” Duncan added. “But our students did make some progress
on the ACT and WorkKeys exams this year. We need to accelerate the pace
of that progress, and we have a number of strategies in place in our
high schools to help them do that.”
Those
strategies include:
- High School Transformation, which focuses on ensuring that all high schools have a strong core curriculum backed up by intensive training for teachers
- AVID, which targets mid-tier students and provides them with extra academic help and college counseling
- Freshman Connection, which provides a month-long head-start to incoming ninth-graders during the summer before their freshman year to help ensure a smooth transition to high school
- Graduation Pathways programs, which include “freshman on-track” and credit-recovery programs that help high schools do a better of tracking which students are struggling academically so that extra support can be provided to those students.
The
Chicago Public Schools is the nation’s third-largest school system.
It includes more than 600 schools and serves about 405,000 students.
—30—
Digg
Del.icio.ushowever, it doesn't sound like that would change the official numbers for ISBE or USDE purposes.
-- alexander
For more information contact:
Mike Vaughn
CPS Office of Communications
(773) 553-1624—direct
(773) 553-1620—office
E-mail: mvaughn@cps.k12.il.us
Website: www.cps.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 3, 2008
High School Students Post Gains on State Standardized Tests
Math, Reading Scores on WorkKeys Jump; Increases Also on ACT in Science, Reading
Chicago public high school students posted gains on most of the standardized tests administered by the state in 2008. The gains on individual components of the annual Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE)—which is the combination of the ACT assessments , the WorkKeys workplace-readiness assessments, and a state-written science test—came despite the requirement this year that non-English-speaking students take the regular exam instead of a separate test designed for them.
“We saw gains in the majority of the tests given by the state to our high school students,” CPS Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan said. “That’s the result of the hard work of our students and teachers, and I want to thank and commend them for that. Now, we need to work harder to push the gains higher and across all subjects.”
Specifically, CPS students posted a gain of 4.8 percentage points on the WorkKeys reading test and gained one-tenth of a scale-score point on the ACT reading exam, compared to the previous year’s scores on those tests.
The score on the math WorkKeys test rose 4.1 percentage points from last year, and the average ACT math score dropped just one-tenth of a scale-score point.
In science, students scored two-tenths of a scale score point higher on average on the ACT, and the average score on the state-written science test dropped 0.4 scale-score points.
On the English component of the ACT, the average score dropped two-tenths of a scale-score point.
These individual testing components are combined together by the state to compute the PSAE composite scores. And the method that the Illinois State Board of Education is using to put those composite PSAE scores together was changed for the 2008 tests. The federal government required the change in the PSAE scoring in order to ensure the tests align closely to state standards, and it resulted in the individual tests being weighted differently than last year when computing the composite PSAE scores.
“ISBE has attempted to use a statistical methodology to link the new set of PSAE scale scores to the old ones. We believe the new PSAE scores are different from the old ones and that valid comparisons between 2008 data and previous years cannot be made,” Duncan added. “We had several schools that saw gains in both the ACT and WorkKeys scores but declines in their PSAE score. We have suggested that ISBE re-score the previous years’ PSAE data using the new methodology, and we are asking ISBE to provide 2008 PSAE scores using the 2007 methodology so that we can truly measure student progress over time. And we understand that this new methodology will create a new baseline score that we’ll use to measure our progress going forward.”
As a result of the new scoring system, the CPS’s overall PSAE composite score is now 27.2 percent of students meeting or exceeding state standards. The PSAE composite reading score is now 30 percent meeting or exceeding state standards; the PSAE composite math score is 27.8 percent; and the PSAE composite science score is 23.9 percent.
“We still have a lot of work to do to get our high school scores where they need to be,” Duncan added. “But our students did make some progress on the ACT and WorkKeys exams this year. We need to accelerate the pace of that progress, and we have a number of strategies in place in our high schools to help them do that.”
Those strategies include:
* High School Transformation, which focuses on ensuring that all high schools have a strong core curriculum backed up by intensive training for teachers
* AVID, which targets mid-tier students and provides them with extra academic help and college counseling
* Freshman Connection, which provides a month-long head-start to incoming ninth-graders during the summer before their freshman year to help ensure a smooth transition to high school
* Graduation Pathways programs, which include “freshman on-track” and credit-recovery programs that help high schools do a better of tracking which students are struggling academically so that extra support can be provided to those students.
The Chicago Public Schools is the nation’s third-largest school system. It includes more than 600 schools and serves about 405,000 students.
—30—
In fact CPS high school students are reading at lower levels than they were in 2001. Since 2005 CPS high school students have experienced a 10% declined in the numbers of students meeting or exceeding state standards in reading. I wonder why the CPS media department did not emphasize these perspectives on the PSAE scores?
Slide 7 shows that since 2005 the average ACT score in reading for CPS students has declined from 17.3 down to 17.1, if ELL are included down to 17. If you take the average CPS ACT reading score from years 2001-2007 you get 16.8. When you look at what is called the standard deviation of this sample you get .31. A fair assessment of the CPS 2008 average ACT reading score of 17.1 is that it represents no real increase, in other words CPS ACT reading scores are stagnate. I found the CPS press release to be completely ridiculous on this issue.
PSAE math scores have also declined. In 2006, 30.1% were at or exceeding state standards in math, in 2008 only 28.3% were, and if ELL are included that percentage drops to 27.8. ACT math scores for CPS have stayed the same from 2007 to 2008.
Here is what is really interesting about CPS reading scores. If we look at the improvement in ISAT reading scores at the elementary school level, with Mr. Duncan constantly pointing to years of gains, how is it possible that high school reading skills appear to be declining, or at least frozen? One would think as these students advance to high school we would be seeing consistent increases in high school students reading skills. We should also contemplate the current CPS high school scores include data for the increased number of charter high schools in Chicago, which according to what we are being told, should also be pushing up average reading and math scores. They appear not to be having much impact.
As for the CPS argument that comparing this year’s PSAE scores to the prior year’s scores and that “valid comparisons” can not be made I found that interesting. I would suspect if the scores had risen, CPS would have no such problem with the validity of comparisons with prior years. Now CPS wants all past data re-scored by ISBE. Given that the ACT reading component reflects 7 years of very limited progress, the PSAE reading scores seem consistent with that data. Once I hear that New Trier is complaining about comparing 2008 PSAE scores to prior years I will give a lot more credence to what CPS is claiming.
It appears that CPS may be averaging out over time at the high school level, scores will increase a little one year, or decline a little the next year.
Improving student performance in an urban school district is a daunting challenge for any school district. CPS has made many amazing claims of performance improvement. The district has become a positive spin PR machine on the issue of improved student performance. CPS has clearly improved its testing scores at the elementary level. But given the lack of carry over to high school I am left wondering how real this is. Are these elementary school scores based on sound test preparation, but a lack of depth of intellectual development for many students? In other words are the higher level processing skills necessary for reading at the high school level not really being transmitted to these students. Or are students actually falling apart in first two years of high school. I do wonder about all of this.
I look forward to seeing CPS’s scores for students with disabilities at the high school level once the district wide report card is released. Clearly no great improvements were made or surely we would have read about it in the late Friday afternoon press release.
Rod Estvan
Access Living
They've also declined in the elementary schools, in most grades, during the same years since Arne Duncan took over. But the official narrative is the opposite.
After Mayor Daley, Arne Duncan, Barbara Eason-Watkins, Alderman Ike Carrouthers, and Ginger Reynolds (don't leave her out of these narratives; she's head of "research" at CPS now and will spin with the best of the Daley ballerinas) did their dog-and-pony show (with that $3 million cheerleading section, consisting of elementary district AIOs and selected principals) at E.F. Young schools three weeks ago, I tried to get the ISAT school-by-school data.
And tried...
And tried again...
And tried some more...
Arne Duncan has ordered CPS administrators to cover up the latest school-by-school ISAT data (the claim is that ISBE hasn't released the data yet), even though Arne Duncan is going around (with our mumbling mayor in tow) proclaiming how ISAT score have gone "up" for seven years. Of course, that is precisely the same time span that Arne Duncan has spent as CEO.
Anyone who can find any of these latest ISAT data -- let alone explanations -- on the CPS Website please let me know.
The data show the usual swings at the "bottom" (because of what is called "volatility) and the to-be-expected manipulations of the data by the charter schools. Remember the year ASPIRA's Mirta Ramirez had the highest "math scores" in Chicago? And no audits from Arne because of the ASPIRA clout at City Hall?
None of this is surprising. Trouble is, with Catalyst purring on Daley's lap, Reader in bankruptcy, and the Sun-Times and Tribune both heading towards bankruptcy, it's unlikely that there will be any critical looks at these data except from one place. And we're busy with the (predictable) outburst of gang banger violence (not only, by the way, in the general high schools) now that it's the pre-Halloween season. More below.
First, no major shifts have occurred nationally on the ACT (see 10-year ACT trend data -- http://www.act.org/news/data/08/charts/text.html#two). A tenth of a point here and there – no trend line. ACT scores comparisons are based on a national composite – but only 3 states (IL, CO, MI) require that ALL juniors take the test. The other 47 states’ scores are an average of mostly college-bound students. Not the same sample.
Look at this table – http://www.act.org/news/data/08/states.html. Looks like Illinois meets or beats the other two states (CO, MI) that test 98%+ of all H.S. students. (OK, CO tops IL on Reading by 0.2, but overall ...) Click on first tab “% of Grads Tested” – you’ll see it.
Same table, click on Composite Scores tab and notice how, overall, the higher percentage tested, the lower the ranking.
Dig a little deeper to get to city 2008 composites: Chicago (17.6) versus Denver (16.3).
My bottom line(s): Stop believing the Chicken Little rhetoric of the corporate-Right-voucher-antiunion-TFA-charter PR machine, including CPS/Daley and, sadly I suspect, CTU to justify privatizing education because of low test scores. Illinois, and for that matter, Chicago don’t “stand out” in poor test performance, a main argument used to justify siphoning off money from public school classrooms to NCLB-generated businesses – charters, turnarounds, Ren2010, AUSL, ACT, and all the test prep consultants, IDS’s, curriculum providers and researchers.
Yes, our schools need to improve dramatically but money does make a difference. Student achievement has been proven, time and again, to hinge on two factors: quality of teacher and class size (or student load). Equitable funding and full school staffing (read lower student loads/class sizes) employing the best and best-paid teachers and specialists, while paying teachers to develop and “own” the curriculum, would go a long way to improving our schools. But, when you have TFA and charters providing cheap, inexperienced, short-term labor for CPS at rock-bottom prices, what do you expect but the continued denigration of the teaching profession and stagnant student achievement?
Rather than test scores, funding equity (IL ranks 49 of 50 states) and the H.S. drop-out rate – around 45% -- should be of greater concern. See http://www.americaspromise.org/uploadedFiles/AmericasPromiseAlliance/Dropout_Crisis/SWANSONCitiesInCrisis040108.pdf. The 28 point urban/suburban Chicago graduation rate gap places Chicago 8th highest, in a bad way, in the nation’s top 50 Metro areas of that most basic measure – first, how many students do we graduate and, second, how well prepared are they all?
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