District 65 school board members when they meet tonight are scheduled to review newly-released state test results that show gradual progress district-wide but substantially lagging performance at Oakton Elementary School.
The preliminary results from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test show that 83.7 percent of students in the district’s 10 kindergarten through fifth grade schools met or exceeded the state performance standard for reading and 90.3 percent met the standard for math.
Individual school scores for reading ranged from 93.2 percent at Willard to 65.2 percent at Oakton. Math scores ranged from 98 percent at Willard to 80 percent at Oakton.
The average scores for black students were substantially lower than for white students, but the spread varied, with the smallest disparity at Lincoln and the largest at Oakton.
Both black and white students at Oakton fared less well than their counterparts at other District 65 schools. Not all schools reported scores for both racial groups.
District-wide the percentage of students exceeding the reading standard increased from 32 percent in 2006 to 34.8 percent this year, while the number meeting the standard was essentially unchanged at 47 percent — for a net reduction of three percent in those failing to meet the standard.
In math, the percentage of students exceeding the standard rose from 43.6 to 50 percent while the number meeting the standard slipped from 44 to 39.4 percent — for a net reduction of two percent in those failing to meet the standard.
Students at the district’s two magnet schools did somewhat better than the average for the neighborhood schools and the three middle schools tended to score close to the district-wide average.
The full test score report forms the last section of the information packet for tonight’s school board meeting.