A new report by the
University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) shows that Chicago public school students have made only marginal academic progress after 20 years of almost constant education reform. The report’s disappointing findings also significantly undermine the accuracy of years of publicly reported education statistics.
The CCSR’s analysis shows that, since 1990 in the Chicago public schools:
- There has been incremental improvement in math scores in elementary and middle grades but reading scores in those grades have been flat for the entire period.
- Racial gaps have steadily increased, with white students making a bit more progress than Latino students, and African-American students falling behind all other groups.
- Graduation rates dramatically improved, high school test scores have risen, and more students are graduating with no average decline in scores.
- But most students’ academic achievement is far below that needed to be ready for college.
The report’s findings contradict more optimistic trends shown in publicly reported test data, but that data does not take account of changes over time in such things as content and scoring. Thus, the CCSR concluded, without the complex statistical analyses of that data used in the report, “the publicly reported statistics used to hold schools and districts accountable are not accurate measures of progress.”
