Chicago test scores fall

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

Chicago Sun Times reported today that Iowa Test Scores in reading dropped this year, while math rose slightly.

A separate story noted that schools which received larger numbers of students who transferred from other schools under the NCLB transfer option had notably larger declines in their test scores. Such schools themselves become more vulnerable to not making Adequate Yearly Progress and thus facing sanctions. That story is below my signature; whole piece is at http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-iowa03.html

This is the first report I have seen about what happened to schools in year one of the transfers. 
Monty Neill, Ed.D.
Executive Director
FairTest
342 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-864-4810    fax 617-497-2224
monty@fairtest.org
http://www.fairtest.org

Law to help kids hurts school scores 

BY KATE N. GROSSMAN Staff Reporter 



A federal law aimed at getting students out of struggling public schools is apparently dragging down the test scores of the kids' new schools, an analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times shows. 

Chicago schools that took in students under the No Child Left Behind law were more likely to see drops in reading and math scores than the system as a whole. 

The drop was most severe in schools that took in between 15 and 29 students, the maximum. 

Ninety-two percent of these schools saw reading scores drop. Systemwide, 69 percent of all schools saw a reading drop. In math, 75 percent of schools receiving 15 or more students experienced a drop, while 39 percent of schools decreased systemwide. 

"Those kids and those schools are casualties of No Child Left Behind," said Barbara Radner, director of DePaul's Center for Urban Education. "I don't know if Mr. Bush understood what he was asking schools to do when he said 'transfer kids in.' . . . There is so much extra that has to be done." 

In the first year of the federally mandated choice program, nearly 100 schools took in some of the city's lowest-performing students. They came from schools that did not make adequate progress for two years on state exams. 

The program was severely limited in its first year--125,000 Chicago children were eligible to move, but Chicago allowed only 2,500 transfers. Many receiving schools, while improving, are on shaky ground with average test scores only marginally better than the schools students left behind. 

"It hurts the school culture, which we're just starting to get intact," said a South Side principal who didn't want to be named. 

Chicago school officials said schools received money for books, diagnostic tests in some cases and honored special requests, but most principals said it wasn't enough. 

Officials are working on a new choice program for this fall; educators hope they learn from this year. Data show schools receiving nine or fewer students were much better off. About 71 percent experienced a drop in reading scores, while 39 percent saw a math drop--numbers that mirror citywide data. Of schools that took in 10 or more students, 84 percent registered a drop in reading scores. 






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