FOREST LEAVES — Oct. 20, 2004

Dist. 90 students meet state test standards

BY CHRIS LAFORTUNE

STAFF WRITER

In every area except for one, more than 90 percent of River Forest District 90 students met or exceeded state standards in math and reading on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test last year.

School trustees received results of the ISAT test at their meeting Monday night.

This year, schools are required to have at least 40 percent of all students meet or exceed standards in math and reading on the ISAT, under the No Child Left Behind requirements.

The state also requires that student subgroups, broken down by race, income and special services needs, meet a standard of 37 percent meeting or exceeding standards. But none of District 90's groups are large enough to count under the law, Superintendent Marlene Kamm said Monday.

There must be at least 40 students within a subgroup in order to have its scores count under the law.

In reading, 93.6 percent of third-grade students at Lincoln School and 93.6 percent of students at Willard School met or exceeded standards. In math, student performance was 97.8 and 95.2 percent, respectively.

At Roosevelt Middle School, 90.5 percent of fifth-grade students and 93.2 percent eighth-grade students met or exceeded standards. In Math, 96.1 percent of fifth-graders and 88.2 percent of eighth-graders did the same.

"We're going to look at what's going on with math and writing in eighth grade," Kamm said. "The eighth-grade scores look a little lower."

In eighth grade, 81.5 percent of Roosevelt students met or exceeded standards. Writing tests do not apply to the No Child Left Behind law and will be discontinued by the state next year.

The district has experienced a dip in student performance at the middle school level in the past, School Board President Sally DelBeccaro told audience members Monday. Eighth-grade students tend to score the lowest.

"Some of it is a motivational issue," she said. "From a student perspective, they're seeing they're out of here by the time spring of eighth grade comes."

ISAT tests are typically given in the spring semester.

The School Board's education committee will study the ISAT performance further at its meeting Nov. 2. The district will present both subgroup performance as well as some comparisons with past performance, Kamm said.

Chris LaFortune can be reached at clafortune@pioneerlocal.com.

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