catalyst-chicago.org

What sets low-income schools with high achievement in science apart from those that perform poorly? To answer that question, Senior Editor Elizabeth Duffrin examined 2003 7th-grade ISAT science test scores at schools with more than 90 percent low-income students, to identify the 10 highest-scoring and 10 lowest-scoring schools. Interviews with principals, teachers or other staff at all but one of the 20 schools showed that, in addition to good teachers, the following three factors stood out:

Good reading scores

After years of neglect while the district focused on reading and math improvement, science is getting attention from Chicago Public Schools.

That attention comes none too soon at high schools, where scores are in the basement. At 36 high schools, the percentage of 11th-graders who met or exceeded state science standards is in the single digits, according to preliminary results for the 2004 Prairie State Achievement Exam.

Citywide, only 27 percent of 11th-graders met or exceeded standards.

Elementary schools are cracking down on discipline problems by suspending a record number of students, most of them African American, a Catalyst analysis found. Schools say more resources and parental support are needed to handle unruly students.

Last year, the staff and local school council at McNair Elementary in Austin got fed up with student misbehavior—especially fighting, which McNair and other schools say is their biggest discipline problem.