Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE) scores dropped slightly last year at Riverside-Brookfield High School in 2006, but remained well above state averages according to the recently released Illinois School Report Card.
The PSAE is given each year to high school juniors across the state. It is a two-day test that consists of the ACT exam on the first day and additional tests on the second day.
In 2006, RB 71.6 percent of RB juniors met or exceeded state standards compared with 75.5 percent the year before. The state average was 54.3 percent in 2006.
RB’s decline came primarily in math and science. In math, 70 percent of RB juniors met or exceeded state standards compared to 75.9 percent in 2005. In science, 70.6 percent of RB juniors met or exceeded standards in 2006 compared to 75.2 percent in 2005. In reading 74.2 percent of RB juniors met or exceeded state standards in 2006 compared to 75.5 percent the previous year.
Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann was not happy about the drop in scores, but was not too concerned.
“One year’s trend is not going to get us overly concerned,” said Baldermann. “I’m confident that next year’s scores are going to be back where they were last year. But I’m not happy when the scores go down the way they did.”
Baldermann contended that the state and the company the state hired to handle the tests made some mistakes which adversely affected RB’s scores.
“I really do believe the state made some errors in the scoring,” said Baldermann. “After reviewing the raw data, I’m convinced of that. We still would have dropped, but not as much as the scores are reporting.”
Specifically, Baldermann said that a couple of students who took the test on a make-up day did not have their scores counted. He also said that four or five students who did not take the second day of tests were counted as not meeting standards when their tests should not have been counted at all, because the students did not complete both days of testing.
RB’s average ACT composite test score stayed almost constant, dropping to 22.3 in 2006 from 22.4 the previous year. The average composite ACT score across the state was 20.3 in 2006, according to the state school report card.
Baldermann is counting a new after-school tutoring program to help raise RB’s scores, especially in math and science.
RB’s scores significantly lagged behind some top performing suburban high schools that RB likes to compare itself to. At Lyons Township High School, 76.2 percent of students met state standards, while at Naperville North High School 81.8 percent of students met or exceeded state standards. At Hinsdale Central 84.9 percent exceeded state standards, and at New Trier a whopping 88.5 percent exceeded state standards.
RB did make adequate yearly progress as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind law.
White students outperformed Hispanic students at RB. While 76.4 percent of white students met or exceeded state standards in reading while 66.6 percent of Hispanic students did. In math 72.1 percent of white students met or exceeded state standards compared to 60.6 percent of Hispanic students. In science 75.6 percent of white students at RB met or exceeded state standards while just 39.4 percent of Hispanic students did.
But RB’s Hispanic students outperformed Hispanic students statewide by significant margins. At Lyons Township High School, for example, 52.8 percent of Hispanic students met state standards in reading, while just 40.3 percent did so in math.
RB students who are enrolled in bilingual programs take the Illinois Measure of Annual Growth in English (IMAGE) test. They did very well in reading with 80 percent meeting or exceeding state standards, but struggled in math with only 20 percent meeting state standards, and no one exceeding state standards.
Baldermann said he was convinced that the decline in scores were just a temporary blip.
“The bottom line is that the gains we made in the last couple years, we lost a lot of those,” said Baldermann. “But we will definitely bounce back the next couple years. I’m very confident of that.”
