Jeff Ward: Notes on West Suburban Civilization

Jeff Ward: Like Lemmings, We're Marching Toward 2014 Academic Armageddon

And despite the editor's Armageddon headline here, the sky isn't falling. The real culprit isn't kids or teachers; it's No Child Left Behind.

In yet another of their “the sky is falling” school pieces, the Aug. 31 Chicago Tribune headline blared “Public H.S. grads struggle at college”! The report went on to describe how Chicago-area students who generally got B's in high school weren’t faring nearly as well at Illinois state universities. To prove their point, the newspaper included all sorts of tables showing the disparity between high school and college grades. Since they only included the best and worst cases, I pulled out the data for all of our Patchland high schools and sorted it by the best state college grade point average to the lowest: Source: Chicago Tribune   I have to admit, in a hermetically sealed statistical world, these numbers are quite fascinating. Hinsdale …

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Mary Stith

7:42 am on Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Well said Angela!   more ›

Glen Ellyn Elementary School Fails to Meet Adequate Yearly Progress

Now at Churchill Elementary parents can opt to send their children to other schools in the district.

For the second consecutive year, one Glen Ellyn elementary school failed to meet state performance standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act. Since specific groups of students at Churchill Elementary School failed to reach the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), required by the state of Illinois and the federal government, students can choose if they want to switch to a different school within Glen Ellyn School District 41. Three student subgroups at Churchill did not meet state performance goals (AYP) for 2011: Hispanic, limited English proficiency and economically disadvantaged students, according to Julie Worthen, communications director for District 41. These AYP requirements were put into place in 2001 under a federal law to ensure …

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