Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 5:23 PMBy: our scores went up-we are thrilled "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley by any means necessary! We wipe our brow and live to teach another year unless they open that proposed charter near us...

Daley is smart to say what he stated and in the press release. He acknowledges what the Eden Martin's group showed in their 'study' and he ducked a little on ren10/charters, giving a drop of holy water to the neighborhood schools. Oh, he is a smooth operator.

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 6:49 PMBy: Dear DP "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley principals are NOT allowed to release the scores per central office. That is why they are called preliminary.

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 7:03 PMBy: yea like "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley they have always released teachers in June--I do not understand your comment.

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 7:36 PMBy: eden martin is kindof stupid "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley he put down the ISAT test as being inflated and not a proper measure of student progress. Yet, that is what his charters use to measure their success. Is he goofy or what?

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 9:53 PMBy: ChicagoTeacher "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley If you are a teacher of a school, you can view ISAT scores, including individual student scores.

This 2009 ISAT for all Chicago schools (public and charter)

Standardized Test Analysis Report (Subject/Section by Test Performance Level)
Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 12.5% 51.8% 33.1% 2.6% 173,228
Math 15.4% 56.5% 25.1% 3.0% 174,282
Science 7.5% 53.8% 28.4% 10.3% 56,459

This 2008 ISAT for all Chicago schools (public and charter)

Standardized Test Analysis Report (Subject/Section by Test Performance Level)
Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 11.8% 51.5% 33.2% 3.5% 176,781
Math 14.0% 54.9% 27.6% 3.5% 178,304
Science 7.3% 52.0% 30.2% 10.5% 57,351




This is 2009 ISAT for charter schools only.

Standardized Test Analysis Report (Subject/Section by Test Performance Level)
Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 10.4% 55.7% 31.8% 2.1% 8,731
Math 11.6% 61.1% 25.3% 2.0% 8,730
Science 4.7% 57.5% 30.2% 7.6% 2,946

This is 2008 ISAT for charter schools only.

Standardized Test Analysis Report (Subject/Section by Test Performance Level)
Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 10.1% 56.1% 31.3% 2.5% 6,879
Math 11.5% 59.4% 26.6% 2.5% 6,928
Science 4.6% 53.0% 33.9% 8.5% 2,342

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 9:59 PMBy: thank you chicago teacher "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley we did much better than the charters BOTH years and they closed our aschool anyway. so sad!

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 10:41 PMBy: harvard--I think "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley this puts them off of probation, since they did go up. 48% still do not meet in reading.
Where are you getting these scores? i would like to look up other schools'...

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 11:04 PMBy: ChicagoTeacher "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley This result list number of students attaining each level of performance for Harvard from 2007 through 2009

2007

Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 6 86 197 20 309
Math 5 99 164 36 304
Science 0 25 33 41 99

2008

Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 10 109 184 25 328
Math 8 145 144 27 324
Science 2 35 45 36 118

2009

Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 21 141 129 24 315
Math 23 179 95 17 314
Science 0 36 38 10 84

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 11:26 PMBy: To Chicago teacher "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley Please look up Earhart. I would really be grateful.

Wed Jul 8, 2009 at 11:45 PMBy: ChicagoTeacher "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley Earhart ISAT Scores

2007

Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 49 94 25 0 168
Math 53 104 11 0 168
Science 6 45 3 5 59

2008

Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 53 113 36 2 204
Math 48 121 33 1 203
Science 5 50 12 0 67

2009

Exceeds Standards Meets Standards Below Standards Academic Warning Total Unique
Reading 52 114 27 0 193
Math 47 129 16 1 193
Science 11 45 6 0 62

Thu Jul 9, 2009 at 1:00 AMBy: George N. Schmidt "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley The first summary report from Paul Vallas looked like it had been written before any audited scores were in. It was entitled "Trending Up", and the Happy Talk continued every year until the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) exhausted their possibilities for any "up" through manipulation. Immediately, the ITBS were dumped, never again to be mentioned, and the ISAT brought in.

As Jerry Bracey has written over and over, any administration can get some "up" from any new test for a few years. If, as happened in Illinois, the test is radically redesigned at some point, you get a little more "up" out of the scores. But all that eventually runs out, and the scores reflect a natural reality until they are replaced with a "new" test and the whole process of gaming tests and scores begins anew (and a while new series of the "Trending Up" narratives is launched, say Version 3.0 in the case of Chicago).

From the beginning of this brand of madness in Chicago in 1996 with the release of the first Probation List by Phil Hansen and Paul Vallas, the key fallacy has been in the worship of the number at the end of the spreadsheet. Whether the singularity of the "bottom line" is from the ITBS, ISAT I (Version1.0), ISAT II (ISAT Version 2.0, the 2006 election special), the madness lies in assigning magical powers to a single test score and then making those powers "real" through such insane "accountability" measures as "Turnaround" and other sanctions.

The key elementary fact in Chicago is that the "bottom" elementary schools have always been predictable since 1995 by a couple of simple factors: economic class of the families; intensity of racial segregation.

We are in the middle of an era like the era of Jim Crow, which grew in its madness over time from its origins in massive segregation, the long-term impact of Plessy v. Ferguson, and the gradual establishment of Lynch Law across much of the USA ("north" as well as "south", as the Illinois and Indiana lynching data showed from 1900 through 1950).

The Daley administrations (Richard J. and Richard M.) succeeded in their various mandates, which basically were to sustain the maximum feasible segregation behind any number of smokescreens, isolating the poor (who were usually colored coded), and dividing and conquering the rest.

The ugly history of Chicago's abuse of two generations of school children through mayoral control and test-based "accountability" is being written as we speak, and these latest data (along with Daley's usual babbling cowardice in the fact of the facts that prove the bankruptcy of his education policies) simply prove what the U.S. Supreme Court said in Brown v. Board of Education a half century ago:

Separate is, has always been, and always will be inherently unequal.

Thu Jul 9, 2009 at 8:16 AMBy: yellowdart "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley For goodness sakes people - the scores are publicly available from the REA website. Go to www.research.cps.k12.il.us and click on the tab that says 'School & Citywide Reports'. To see data for individual schools click on the link that says 'All schools'. You will find excel sheets with all the data for all schools from 2002-2009. To see the aggregate data click on the 'Citywide' link instead. Teachers can access their ISAT data through CIM.

Thu Jul 9, 2009 at 1:34 PMBy: Rod Estvan students with disabilities fall behind "A Long Way To Go," Admits Daley I would like to make a few comments on the preliminary ISAT scores for CPS. I am only going to discuss at this time the combined scores grades 3-8. All the data I discuss excludes English Language Learner (ELL) students. The CPS has the data with and without these students, because CPS must now use standard testing on these students whereas in earlier years they were given a different test. So to be fair I am using the data that excludes these students, but if you add them in scores do drop significantly.

In relation to the performance of CPS students who have disabilities. In 2008 19,945 students with IEPs in grades 3-8 were given the reading test for ISAT, of these students 4,687 (23.5%) were able to read at or above state standards. By 2009 19,921 students with IEPs in grades 3-8 were given the reading test for ISAT, of these students 4,820 (24.2%) were able to read at or above state standards.

For the subgroup of students with disabilities the critical NCLB standard is the gap between students with disabilities and without disabilities. In 2008 that gap for reading was 49.2 percentage points; in 2009 that gap was 49.9 percentage points. This means simply that students with disabilities attending CPS have fallen even further behind their non-disabled CPS peers and CPS is getting further away from the goal of NCLB which is to reduce this gap.

Back in 2005 the gap in reading between students with and without disabilities was 38.4 percentage points. My analysis of the data is simply that CPS is focusing its efforts on moving up the test scores of those students most likely to move from slightly below standards (ISAT reading level 2) to the meets/exceeds category. Those students far below standards (ISAT reading level 1), i.e. where most students with disabilities can be found, are effectively being given fewer resources than those more likely to pass the test.

Given this data I do not find it surprising that the Mayor's Office press release made no mention of subgroup scoress for students with disabilities.

Rod Estvan
Access Living of Chicago