Our Strategic Plan, for the past three years, has focused on retention, persistence, and ultimately, completion. We have seen some measurable improvements is all three areas and look forward to even more gains.
However, under no circumstances have we agreed that lowering standards at the course or program levels is an acceptable method of improving our performance. It's folly.
Read more for an illustration.
~Tom
(33,260)
The following news article is reprinted from the Chicago Tribune at:
Tribune analysis: College prep courses not preparing kids for college
A full plate of general classes — the most common courses statewide across Illinois public high schools — is supposed to prepare students for life after graduation.
But tens of thousands of students taking only general courses in main subjects — often labeled "college prep" in school curriculum guides — were not prepared for college classes, a sweeping Tribune analysis of the class of 2015 found. Those students made up most of the kids across Illinois who were not considered college ready in fundamental academic areas.
A variety of factors, including the push to improve graduation rates and eliminate remedial courses, quietly weakened the rigor of some general classes, educators said, leaving students in courses that weren't tough enough.
Public education debates both here and nationwide often focus on school funding, teacher pensions, charter schools and vouchers. Little-mentioned in the discourse, though, is one of the most significant aspects of schooling: The classes kids take.
The Tribune examined 4.2 million high school classes taken semester by semester by more than 150,000 students in the class of 2015, starting in fall 2011. The courses were in English, math, science and social studies — the main subjects required for graduation. The data from the Illinois State Board of Education, obtained under open records laws, are the most recent available that could be linked to college entrance exam scores.
Dozens of high school courses with obscure titles were labeled general by school officials, though they were not in the usual course sequence leading to graduation, the Tribune found. Other courses were so low-level that one longtime educator described them as a "death sentence" for students trying to go to college. But the classes sufficed for earning a diploma.
"At the high school level, there are multiple pressures going on. One is, kids need to graduate," said George Reese, director of the Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education at the University of Illinois and president of the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
"There are different meanings to a high school degree," Reese said. Kids taking lower-level classes are still supposed to graduate ready for college or a career. But, Reese said, students in those classes can end up "placed into remedial math at a community college."
To be sure, some students were stuck in all general classes because they lacked the opportunity to take more challenging courses.
In each core subject, between 122 and 179 schools reported no courses more rigorous than general. And 74 of the nearly 700 schools in the data reported no courses tougher than general in all four subjects.
Chicken or the egg?
That many students have not been considered prepared for college and work is not new. ISBE has been providing public data on college readiness for several years, showing large percentages of students not ready for freshman college classes in the key academic subjects.
But the Tribune for the first time matched course rigor with how well students fared on the ACT.
Schools are required to report course rigor to ISBE in one of four categories: Honors, enriched, general and remedial. Special education classes are a separate category. The Tribune also broke out Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes, the most challenging courses.
The newspaper analyzed an accompanying data set that included about 120,000 high school juniors who took classes in the four main subjects and sat for the college entrance exam at school in spring 2014.
Among the Tribune's findings:
• Overall, 75 to 80 percent of students who took only general-level classes in math, social studies or science weren't prepared for key college classes in those subjects. About 50 percent of those students weren't prepared in English, based on the ACT college entrance exam's target scores for college readiness.
• Kids who took just one advanced class along with general courses scored higher on average than the students who took all general courses. Not surprisingly, students who took only advanced courses scored better on average than their peers who took solely general classes.
• The vast majority of students who took all general classes didn't get the strong scores that help kids get into selective colleges. In each of the ACT's four test areas, only 9 to 12 percent of the all-general students scored in the top quartile.
Factors such as poverty, parental involvement and home and school environment can affect how students fare at school. In addition, some schools offer test preparation and others don't. And some students in general courses may test poorly or don't do their homework and flunk tests, educators say.
In Elgin-based School District U-46, assessment director Laura Hill said schools and educators do the best job possible for students. "It's just a matter of everyone has to do their part in order for success to happen," she said, and that means kids too.
"There is a relationship (between the courses and scores), we can't deny that," Hill said. But whether the courses themselves cause kids to struggle on a college entrance exam is a bit more murky.
Kevin Welner, a professor and director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, said, "It is a chicken and egg thing. ... Is it because that kids are in general classes so they score lower on the ACT, or, they are not likely to do well on the ACT, so they are in general classes? It's probably more to the latter, but it is both things."
Academic research shows that challenging courses do matter in high school. The College Board's SAT data, for example, show that kids score higher on that college entrance exam when they take top classes in the main subjects, such as calculus compared with geometry, British literature compared with English/language arts; physics compared with earth science, and European history compared with geography.
A 2012 report by the National School Boards Association's Center for Public Education stated: "The academic rigor of a student's high school coursework has a long-lasting impact on future careers and earnings."
And "rigor should lead to the common outcome that all students are prepared for college, career and responsible citizenship."
Mixing general, remedial
Many parents and students are familiar with typical sequences of courses that kids take in the main academic areas, such as biology, chemistry and physics, or algebra 1, geometry and algebra 2.
But the state data revealed many high schools offered a plethora of general courses that honors students rarely took and were labeled remedial by some schools. Those courses include informal mathematics and transition algebra; conceptual biology and technical science; humanities survey and composition-workplace experience, among others. The number of different courses ranged from 55 in English to 97 in social studies, all options that can count toward a diploma.
Educators say general courses have become so widespread in part because high schools have eliminated low-level remedial classes, or shifted some students with lower skills into general classes. A very small percentage of the millions of courses — about 2 to 5 percent in each of the main subjects — were labeled remedial in the state data.
Schools "have moved away from remedial kinds of things. Telling a kid who needs to go to remediation means we just don't think you're smart enough to get high school curriculum," said Kevin O'Mara, superintendent of the south suburban Argo Community High School district and the president of the Illinois High School District Organization.
At the same time, O'Mara raised concerns about courses that aren't labeled accurately. "School districts will play games with labeling to try to make sure that they don't have any remedial courses on the books anymore," he said. "That I feel is fraudulent to the taxpayers, to the kids, to the parents, to the teachers."
Carol Baker is the former director of curriculum over science in Oak Lawn-based Community High School District 218 and became a grade school superintendent in west suburban Lyons in July.
She said District 218 began to pull kids from remedial classes a few years ago because students in those classes were not meeting academic standards in science. Baker recalled saying, "We have to get some of them out of there. It's a death sentence. It's like the no-college sentence."
But the switch would take some work, Baker said. "Just because we put lower-level students in a regular class doesn't mean they'll automatically be able to do that level of work. Could some? Yes. Do we want them to have the opportunity? Yes."
But multiple pressures can arise, for example, if a teacher is evaluated on student performance. Teachers would have to provide instruction to a more diverse group that could include many kids with lower skills.
"The only thing a teacher can do is to scale back on the level of rigor and the level of difficulty of the class; otherwise, 50 percent of the class will fail, and how will that look on her evaluation? That's not good," Baker said.
In Will County, Lockport Township High School District 205 has been eliminating slow-moving "basic" classes since about 2013, said K. Brett Gould, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Instead, the district's high school places students in general classes, such as math, and provides extra help to kids who are struggling.
"Our duty is to make sure kids are college and career ready," Gould said.
Low-level courses including foundations of geometry and biology essentials have been shelved at the high school, but others remain on the books, Gould said, such as conceptual chemistry and conceptual physics. "We are trying to move away" from those courses, he said.
The conceptual courses are listed in the high school's course guide under the "College and Career Readiness" curriculum. In the state's data reported by Lockport, the conceptual courses are labeled as general.
Wileen Gehrig, the assistant superintendent over instructional services at Warren Township High School District in Lake County, said the district has remedial courses and reports them as such. Currently, they are called "college core" courses, which are designed to help students work on college prep material at a less rigorous pace.
The school offers a higher percentage of remedial courses, by two to three times, than state averages, data show. At the same time, the high school had higher than average percentages of students in the most advanced classes.
Gehrig said a physical science class reported to the state is now outdated, scrapped so all incoming freshman would take some level of biology instead.
At the district's O'Plaine campus in Gurnee, science teachers Rob Piggott and Jason Caswick were teaching freshman biology on a recent afternoon. But the two classes were not the same and the textbooks were different.
One was honors-level biology and the other general, or "college prep" level, biology.
"The pace and depth are different," said Piggott.
The district also offers a remedial course called STEM biology. It is labeled as a "college core" class in the curriculum guide.
Tracking
How students get placed into general or advanced classes is a longtime, regimented process, part of the stratified high school experience, known as tracking.
High schools usually review a student's junior high school grades and standardized test scores. Teachers can also make recommendations on which level of courses would be appropriate and parents and students usually discuss the courses with high school counselors, school officials say. If there is a disagreement about placement, families may intervene.
At Addison Trail High School in DuPage County, parent Maria Venuti said her 9th grade son Alexander did not take advanced classes in junior high and expected he would take general courses in high school. But he took a tough summer math class at the College of DuPage, paving the way for him to get into honors courses at the high school, Venuti said.
"We knew he was going to excel in regular classes. We just kind of wanted to push the envelope to see if he could be challenged in the honors classes," Venuti said. "My husband and I both believe that colleges do look at how you excel in honors classes as opposed to regular classes."
Alexander took several honors courses this school year but did switch to regular geometry because the honors geometry class was a bit too fast-paced, Venuti said.
General courses have permeated high school schedules throughout the state, with 64 to 69 percent of courses in each of the main subject areas — English, math, science and social studies — labeled as general.
Dozens of downstate and Chicago area high schools reported even higher percentages of general courses. Those included much of the Chicago Public School system's high schools and schools in Elgin, Aurora, Lockport, Bolingbrook, Marengo, Waukegan, West Chicago, Berwyn, Skokie and South Holland.
In contrast, a few districts offered very few or no general classes at their schools, including several CPS selective enrollment schools as well as New Trier Township High School campuses on the North Shore and Proviso Math and Science Academy in west Cook County.
Angel Delgado, 18, is a senior at Proviso East High School in Maywood, where in recent years there have been few advanced courses. In his high school career, Angel said he took just one honors course — world civilizations during his freshman year.
Across the main academic subjects, 82 to 91 percent of classes at Proviso East were labeled general in the state data. And students taking all general classes fared poorly on the ACT, with average scores ranging from about 14 to 16 in the four subjects tested.
Delgado said he recalls being asked by school officials about taking honors classes in math and English, but he knew those subjects weren't his strong points.
"I would have liked more honors classes in history. But they didn't really have the staffing for it," he said. "I would have loved to take more honors classes, but it is what it is."
Delgado said he plans to go to community college.
Of the roughly 150,000 students taking courses in each core academic subject, about half — between 49 and 54 percent — were placed exclusively in general courses in math, science and social studies. About 44 percent were placed in all general classes in English. Those kids were never put in more advanced classes that might help them get a better score on college entrance exams, or get into four-year universities or avoid taking remedial classes after high school.
Tribune also found that low income students were disproportionately placed in general classes.
For example, 47 percent of all students taking science classes statewide were labeled low-income. But 56 percent of students taking all general science classes were low income. The pattern was the same in the other three subjects.
Fundamental shift
The push to eliminate remedial courses in high school came in part from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, several educators said. The NCAA requires college-bound athletes to take classes in key subjects that prepare them for college. Courses that don't count are "classes taught below grade level, at a slower pace or with less rigor or depth. These classes are often titled basic, essential, fundamental or foundational," according to NCAA materials.
At the same time, a new era of higher academic standards has been sweeping the country in recent years.
Illinois adopted the Common Core standards in June 2010 for K-12 schools, emphasizing critical thinking, problem-solving and a greater depth of instruction to ensure all graduating students are prepared to attend college or enter the workforce. The standards focus on what students should know in mathematics and English/language arts, including literacy standards for social studies and science.
The new standards were scheduled to roll out across Illinois between 2010 and 2014, and were a fundamental shift, particularly for high schools used to stratifying students, placing them into different levels of classes based on their abilities. In that scenario, some students would finish high school prepared for college, but others might not.
Whether students are considered prepared has been a controversial topic in public education circles. Over the years, not all educators have bought into the ACT's analysis of what it means to be college ready, but the company stands by its research. The College Board's SAT college entrance exam also uses college-ready benchmarks, and Illinois juniors now take that test for free at school.
Illinois public school students who took only general classes on average scored an 18.5 in math on the 2014 ACT taken at school as juniors, and 18.4 in reading, which is used for college readiness in social studies. The ACT's target score for college readiness in those subjects is 22. The statewide average for the class of 2015 was 20.5 in both math and reading.
In science, the all-general students averaged an 18.3. The ACT's college ready benchmark is 23. The statewide average was 20.4.
The all-general students averaged a 17.7 in English, slightly lower than the ACT's college readiness benchmark of 18. The statewide average in English was 20.
In each of the four subjects, the students taking only general classes made up 54 to 62 percent of kids statewide who didn't meet the college-ready benchmarks.
The ACT's college-ready target scores relate to students' ability to do well in key college freshmen courses. For example, students scoring the ACT target of 22 in math would have a 50 percent chance of getting a B or higher in college algebra, and about a 75 percent chance of getting a C or higher in that class, according to the ACT.
'No honors classes'
In some affluent Chicago suburban districts, students still scored above average or higher on the ACT and met benchmarks after taking general classes.
At Hinsdale Central High School, for example, students taking all general classes in math posted an average ACT score of 23.9, exceeding the ACT's target for college readiness.
"We always say we have high expectations for all of our students," said Pamela Bylsma, assistant superintendent for academics at Hinsdale Township High School District 86. "I think the idea is that you want to have an appropriate amount of rigor in a class which stretches a child out of a comfort zone but not so much that they get overwhelmed and they shut down. ... If it is too easy, we are not serving students properly."
At the same time, students taking all honors and college-level AP math classes at Hinsdale Central scored an average of 33, the state data show. The same pattern emerged for affluent high schools such as Libertyville, Vernon Hills and Lake Forest in Lake County. Kids taking all general classes in math at those schools scored 24 to 25 on the ACT, but students in honors and AP classes scored about 33 on average.
Still, Bylsma said, "You should be able to leave school having gone through the general track and you should be able to be college and career ready."
Travis Whitt, 19, graduated in 2016 from the small downstate Altamont High School where he served on the student council and headed the school newspaper.
"We had no honors classes, no IB, no AP. All were regular, run-of-the-mill courses," Whitt said. "There were some classes where I felt challenged. But I hate saying it, but there were some classes I wish I could have had more in-depth experiences. I don't blame the teachers on that."
Altamont Superintendent Jeffrey Fritchtnitch acknowledged the dearth of advanced courses, saying his teachers don't have the preparation to teach high-level classes such as AP.
At the same time, general courses at the high school are rigorous, he said. Altamont High School has done better than state averages on meeting college readiness targets, according to state data.
Overall, "my teachers were phenomenal for the situation they are in," Whitt said, adding that one particular teacher helped him prepare for the ACT. Whitt got a good score and went on to Ohio State, where he is majoring in finance.
But most classmates did not expect to attend a four-year university, Whitt said. "I think the majority are staying at the local community college."
Angela Caputo and Angie Leventis Lourgos contributed.
Twitter @diane_rado
