For the third straight year Congress Park School in Brookfield did not make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP), according to the Illinois State Board of Education, based on the results of its 2011 Illinois Standards Achievement Test, given to students in third through sixth grades in March.
In order to make the grade in 2011, 85 percent of all students needed to meet or exceed state standards in reading and in math while subgroups of students needed to hit other benchmarks set by the state.
At Congress Park, the most diverse student body in all of LaGrange-Brookfield District 102, both of the school’s subgroups – Hispanic students and low-income students – hit their marks. District 102 serves the southwest quarter of Brookfield.
However, when taken as a whole, the school didn’t reach the 85-percent mark in reading, falling a few percentage points shy at 81 percent. In math, the school met that benchmark with 88 percent of its students meeting or exceeding standards.
While the school has failed to make AYP for three straight years, the reasons differed each year, although in all cases the shortcomings related to achievement in reading.
In 2010, the test results for the first time included a subgroup category for black students, and just 50 percent of black students met state standards in reading. With the school’s overall black enrollment dropping, 52 students in 2011, there were no longer enough black students tested to count for a subgroup.
Congress Park’s state-issued School Report Card showed, however, that black achievement in reading appeared to have improved year over year, at least in fifth and sixth grades, where there were enough black students to warrant an official tally. In fifth grade, 75 percent of black students met state standards in reading, while 66.7 percent did so in sixth grade.
In 2009, the first year the school failed to make adequate yearly progress, low-income students failed to hit state benchmarks for reading – just 57.7 percent in that subject. In 2011, 75.7 percent of low-income students met state standards in reading, good enough to hit the benchmark for that subgroup.
Scores slipping at Lincoln School
Meanwhile, Lincoln School in Brookfield, for the first time in 2011, failed to make adequate yearly progress and a look at test results since 2005 shows that after several years of improvement, scores have slipped back somewhat.
Lincoln School is part of Brookfield-Lyons School District 103, which serves the southeast quarter of Brookfield.
Taken as a whole, students in grades 3-5 failed to meet the state’s 85-percent meets/exceeds benchmark in reading in 2011, with 74.5 percent doing so in that subject.
The percentage of all students meeting state standards in reading has fallen for three straight years at Lincoln School. The school reached its high-water mark in reading in 2008 with 80 percent of students. In 2009, that number fell to 76.6 percent and it has slipped slightly in each of the two years since then.
Math scores have also dipped the past two years at Lincoln School. In 2008 and 2009, a little more than 88 percent of all students met state standards in math. In 2011, the percentage stood at 84.3 percent, lower than the 85-percent threshold, but still considered good enough to have met adequate yearly progress by the state board of education.
Achievement in reading and math for white students has dropped the past two years after seeing strong growth from 2005 to 2009. In 2011, 74.6 percent of white students met standards in reading, down from 84.1 percent in 2009. In math, the percentage of white students meeting state standards is down in 2011 to 88.7 percent from 93.7 in 2009.
Hispanic students, who make up 52 percent of the school’s population, saw their scores in reading and math fall as well in 2011 after making gains from 2005 to 2010.
