Not as good as you think: Illinois’ underperforming schools

Is the school your child attends as good as you think it is? New research by Lance Izumi – senior director of education studies at the California-based Pacific Research Institute – shows that a large number of suburban Illinois public schools aren’t making the grade. His study complements research conducted by the Illinois Policy Institute...

Is the school your child attends as good as you think it is?

New research by Lance Izumi – senior director of education studies at the California-based Pacific Research Institute – shows that a large number of suburban Illinois public schools aren’t making the grade.

His study complements research conducted by the Illinois Policy Institute earlier this year, highlighting the dismal academic environment in Illinois’ lowest-performing schools – places where more than three-quarters of elementary school and high school students are at least one grade level behind in math and reading.

Izumi’s study looked at the 2013 results of the Illinois Standard Achievement Test, or ISAT and the Prairie State Achievement Exam in Illinois schools where less than 33 percent of the student population is low-income.

The findings are surprising – and should make suburbanites think twice about whether the school their child attends is as good as they think it is:

• 140, or 12 percent, of middle-class, suburban schools have 50 percent or more of their students in at least one grade who are at least one grade level behind in math or reading.

• 817, or 70 percent, of middle-class, suburban schools have at least one grade where students’ performance on the math or reading portion of the ISAT or PSAE was below the average performance of students at schools with similar populations.

Prairie View Middle School – located in the solidly middle-class Chicago suburb of Tinley Park – is the perfect example of an underperforming school.

Even though less than 3 percent of students are low-income, 34 percent of Prairie View Middle School eighth-graders failed to meet standards on the 2013 reading portion of the ISAT. They also scored 14 percentage points lower than schools with similar demographics.

It would be one thing if this was a one-off occurrence – if all of the other data showed that the rest of the students at Prairie View Middle School were meeting standards.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Prairie View Middle School students performed worse than students at schools with similar demographics on each and every one of the grade-level ISAT subject matter tests.

Tinley Park wasn’t the only community with a school that made the list. In fact, it wasn’t even in the top 10, according to the map featured below.

The top spot belonged to Plainfield SD 202 – 22 of its schools have at least one grade level that is underperforming.

Unfortunately, there are many middle-class parents whose children are stuck in underperforming schools that want out, but can’t act, because they can’t afford to move to a new community or pay private school tuition.

There is one program that could provide help to those families immediately.  The Illinois Education Expense Tax Credit currently allows families to receive up to a $500 deduction from their state taxes for education-related expenses, including private school tuition. If the deduction was increased and became refundable for individuals with low tax liability, more middle-class families could afford to send their child to the school of their choice.

Another option is an education-savings account. These already exist in Arizona and Florida.

Here’s how it works: if parents agree to not enroll their children in public school, they receive a portion of the state and local money that would have been spent on their student had they attended public school.

They can then use this money for education-related expenses, including private school tuition, online courses and private tutoring. And here’s the kicker: any money left over gets rolled into a 529 college savings account. This should appeal to any middle-class parent concerned about paying for their child’s college education.

Izumi’s research shows that school choice shouldn’t just be discussed in the context of the lowest-performing schools in the state’s poorest districts. It should be an option for middle-class parents too, especially in areas where their schools aren’t as good as they think.

To see if your school is underperforming, click here.