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For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
By: Sarah Karp / July 08, 2011
CEO Jean-Claude Brizard spent Friday morning lauding teachers and principals from turnaround schools run by the Academy for Urban School Leadership. The not-for-profit organization, which runs a teacher training academy, posted some of the best elementary school test scores in the district and Brizard said he was there to find out the secret ingredient.
The group told him the gains were created by a combination of good hires, a lot of professional development and coaching, an emphasis on creating a calm and welcoming school culture and creating a good relationship with the community.
Brizard seemed impressed. But when he announced the scores in late June he was careful not to be too congratulatory, emphasizing that other indicators show that the city’s schools need work. He pointed to 8th grade and 9th grade scores on the EXPLORE, the precursor to the ACT college-entrance exam.
EXPLORE scores (for 8th graders) only inched up, from 14.1 in 2009-2010 to 14.2 in 2010-2011. A third of the schools that posted double-digit gains in 8th-graders meeting or exceeding standards on the ISAT saw no improvement, or saw scores drop, on the EXPLORE, according to a Catalyst Chicago analysis of school-by-school EXPLORE scores.
The highest score on the EXPLORE is a 25 and some of the city’s selective enrollment elementary school programs have average scores of 20.
But students at the district’s 13 turnaround schools did best, with the biggest gains in both the ISAT and the EXPLORE. Turnaround is a drastic process to improve the city’s worst schools by giving them extra resources and replacing most of their staff. Turnaround schools typically started out with the lowest scores.
However, there was a wider variance in performance on the EXPLORE as compared to the ISAT. Of the eight turnaround schools whose 8th-graders did significantly better on the ISAT (with gains of more than 10 percentage points), just three saw a 1 point or more increase on the EXPLORE and five saw virtually no movement.
AUSL Executive Director Don Feinstein said he understands why Brizard is pushing for the higher standards, but that asking for increases in EXPLORE might be too much too soon.
“We have to walk before we can run,” he said. “We have to meet before we can exceed.”
Morton School Of Excellence was the only AUSL turnaround in which 8th-graders did significantly better on both the EXPLORE and the ISAT. The EXPLORE tests college-and-career readiness standards, which are nationally-normed and updated regularly. Principal Angel Turner says she made sure that her 8th-grade teachers knew the college-readiness standards and taught to them.
“We push them to do well on the EXPLORE,” she says. “We like to push that rigor.”
Charter schools, selective enrollment and neighborhood schools saw a one percentage point gain in EXPLORE scores.
According to CPS, students should see their scores increase by 1 or 2 points each year, depending on their starting point. A student with a 14 on the EXPLORE who makes expected gains should end up with a 17.5 on the ACT. But a student with a 20 on the EXPLORE should end up with a 24 on the ACT.
The 2010-2011 ACT scores have yet to be released, but in 2009-2010, the average score was only 17.3 out of a possible 36.
A 2008 study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research found that students need to score in the “exceeds” category on the ISAT to have a reasonable chance of getting a 20 on the ACT. A 20 is what is needed to get into a moderately selective college, such as Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
In the 2010-2011 school year, in 8th grade, only 13.7 percent of students exceeded standards, a 0.4 percentage point increase from the past year.
ISBE Spokesman Matt Vanover says that it is difficult to compare the ISAT with the EXPLORE. The ISAT tests Illinois Learning Standards, which were developed in 1997 with the intention of figuring out what students need to know in elementary schools.
“It is testing different things and has a different scoring system,” Vanover says. “It is like apples and oranges.”
Over the next couple of years, Illinois will be implementing the Common Core Standards, a set of standards that most states have agreed to adopt. Like the ACT and the EXPLORE, the Common Core Standards look at college readiness and will impose that lens to the lower grades.
“For example, 4th grade math is more rigorous and has higher standards,” Vanover says.
8th Grade Scores, ISAT vs EXPLORE
| School Type |
Change in ISAT Meets /Exceeds |
Change in ISAT Exceeds |
Change in EXPLORE |
| Charter | 2.34 | -7.6 | .03 |
| Magnet | 2.86 | -1.98 | -.28 |
| Neighborhood | 3.71 | .72 | .10 |
| Selective |
1.14 | -2.01 | .12 |
| Turnaround | 13.37 | 1.82 | .33 |
| OVERALL |
3.78 | .36 | .07 |
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Mayor Rahm and CEO Brizard are all about test-based accountability. It is hammered into the core of every principal and teacher from Central Office to Area Office to local school buildings.
Neighborhood schools outperform charter schools in boosting ISAT Meets/Exceeds, ISAT Exceeds, and EXPLORE results. Let's build more charter schools! Yeah!
Not that neighborhood schools are the be all end all. But from these results it appears they achieve more with charter school rejects, open enrollment, no enrollment or class size caps, and higher proportions of both ELL and special education students. Remind me again why CPS continues to close neighborhood schools in favor of charters?
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
All anyone has to do is tune into one of the cable news shows where they present opposing economists or opposing pollsters to see the folly and/or danger of judging anything by statistical analysis. Your head will explode as you try to make sense of seemingly intelligent adults looking at the same data and coming to absolute opposite results. How much more laughable is it to listen to anything coming out of CPS where the only goal is to lower those salary checks.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Isn't Explore taken in September and ISAT in May? So isn't a whole year's worth of additional instruction happening between the two tests? I'm confused.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
I know some teachers who teach at an AUSL run turn-around school. They basically only teach to the test. There is a requirement on them to do ISAT style tests every 5 weeks to measure student progress. They spend a huge amount of time teaching test-taking strategies and feel pressure from above to get those scores up. This is exactly the type of atmosphere where cheating has been exposed in NYC, DC, Atalnta and even here in Chicago years back. If it looks too good to be true it might be... and if Explore scores weren't up, maybe they spent too much time teaching to the ISAT test.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
I have been watching both blogs to see who would be fearless enough to mention the word cheating and Chicago in the same post. It has been so quiet here lately. For the record and future, Atlanta has cheating. If it were Chicago which we know this could never be, it would be called "inconsistencies in the data".
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
If I hear the word RIGOROUS one more time I am going to be sick!!! CPS loves to use that word....just by using it they think they are superior... its funny when you see the definition in the dictionary ...its says it all....what CPS thinks of its students:
Rigorous characterized by or proceeding from rigour; harsh, strict, or severe: rigorous discipline
Synonyms
1. stern, austere, hard, inflexible, stiff, unyielding. See strict. 2. demanding, finical. 3. hard, bitter.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Rigorous is just another buzz word that is thrown around with no meaning. I regularly hear the words: rigorous, collaborate, differentiation, engage, and skills-based instruction. As far as I can tell, rigorous means test-based yes/no black or white answers, not critical thinking or intellectually demanding. Collaborate means talk to your neighbor at PD or, worse, role play a student-teacher interaction. Differentiation means make a poster. Engage means group work usually for the poster...... and skills-based instruction is simply test taking strategies.
I find it deeply concerning that my students are asked to read a news article and answer EPAS style questions, but have NO IDEA what the article is about. I sat in on a class where students were doing "skills-based instruction" on finding a main idea. Half way through the class, one of the kids asked why in the article about conflict in the middle east, sometimes it says George W Bush and other times it says George H W Bush. The teacher actually said that it didn't matter who the people were and redirected the student back to the EPAS question.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
And if you use big poster paper it means the lesson was well taught! hahahah
I often find principals refer to the students as our "babies"..even though he/she never even takes 5 minutes out of their day to talk to one baby! other than traing to extract information about a teacher!
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Trust me; if you knew Mrs. Turner you would understand the words she used. AUSL put her in charge when they moved the previous temp principal to Phillips High School. They pull out all the tricks around this time. They are politically connected and only a Sh*t storm can prevent their corrupt progress.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Trust me; if you knew Mrs. Turner you would understand the words she used. AUSL put her in charge when they moved the previous temp principal to Phillips High School. They pull out all the tricks around this time. They are politically connected and only a Sh*t storm can prevent their corrupt progress.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
First, AUSL teachers DO NOT take ISAT style tests every 5 weeks! Where did you get that from! That is an outright lie! I work in an AUSL school and talk and "collaborate" with teachers from other AUSL schools often. Please don't spread erroneous information. Next, I know Mrs. Turner many of her teachers, and when I say they work their butts off , they work their butts off. No need to go into detail, but I know first hand how hard they work and they definitely DO NOT teach to the test. Why don't you call up an AUSL school and ask to do an observation. Do it for several schools at random, and I guarantee you, you won't see teachers teaching to the test. They simply teach the whole child and we know that in itself makes a world of difference, ISAT or NO ISAT!
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Oh yeah, they're teaching to the test. AUSL won't keep getting its CPS money if those test scores don't go up. In a WBEZ interview with an AUSL teacher, a ground-breaking, 25th Century new teaching technique was highlighted: individualized word cards for students. Shut up! Why didn't those old fashioned regular CPS teachers ever come up with that idea? Guess they didn't want to work their butts off.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
If it sounds to good to be true, then Brizard should dig a little deeper in regards to AUSL's performance gains. In my community, AUSL in Phillips is about 10 blocks away from Dunbar High School. However, Dunbar had 1400 students last summer and as school progressed last Fall, they ended up with 200 additional students. Then the community had to deal with additional unruly students. However, one can't help but wonder if these additional students at Dunbar, were really counseled out students from Phillips. If this is the case then AUSL isn't doing anything worth talking about. Anyone can transfer failing students to another school. In the "Lakefront Outlook" on July 6, 2011 it is mentioned that Phillips had 84 seniors 47 graduated (55.9%)and their 5 year graduation rate was 42.9 in 2010. This graduation rate almost looks like Dunbar but on a much smaller scale. Dunbar's 5 year graduation rate is according to their SIPAAA was 50% in 2010. AUSL is not in Dunbar, however Dunbar and Phillips are both failures and I do not see anything that AUSL has done that would make me go to the media and praise their works. Again did they send any students to Dunbar to boost their performance???? If this is true then AUSL should never have been given a $4 million dollar contract.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
For those who are touting AUSL turnarounds as something extraordinary, I just wanted to share that a Selective Enrollment like Whitney Young has an average ACT score of 26 and an AUSL turnaround like Phillips is an humble score of 14. We have a family member that is a senior in college who scored well above the average score of 26 while attending Whitney Young and yes he is black. Also this year at the WhitneyYoung graduation ceremony, another black student was recognized for having a perfect score. So again, any supposed gain in AUSL High Schools shrink in comparison to a Selective Enrollment. So which school should we as parents prefer in order to prepare our children for college??
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
On the subject of AUSL in an elementary school like National Teachers Academy I would also check to see if any attendance area boundaries were changed and to see if kids were moved out to schools south of them like Drake or Pershing West. The communities north of Douglas have a history of transferring their lowest performers out of their school and into our region in order to boost their performance and the biggest perpetrator was and probably still is South Loop School. Arne Duncan initially counseled them to dump failing students into our magnets in order to give them a gifted center program. South Loop was one of the lowest performing schools in the south region, scoring in the lower 20th percentile and look at them now. Pershing was outperforming this school and meeting state standards during this time and still has not received a promotion to Gifted or Classical Program. Sounds like an unfair advantage for South Loop School. OK Stem is also a Magnet without earning the status. However the 4th-8th program at Pershing is now a regular program, while the k-3rd is still a Magnet. Doesn't this sound like a demotion? Also, where did the major increase in Special Needs children in Pershing West come from?? They are at 20% special Ed now? This is another disadvantage to black performing schools. Does CPS want performing black schools to remain successful?? I wonder!! It seems as if they want to destroy all of our performing schools, so that we will not have a variety of school, including enrollments. We need this options as well in order to meet the needs of every child our communities.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
I always find it funny how people who clearly do not work for CPS talk about AUSL schools transferring students out to make it appear as though their school has gotten better. Let me help you all out. A school cannot randomly transfer a student out. No school has to accept any student who is not in their attendance boundaries (except selective enrollements and special programs w/in a school). Meaning if a child acts up and is unruly, no administrator can simply transfer that child to another school. A parent can request a transfer but must then provide proof of address to the new school. So the schools get better because they implement structure and high standards where there was once a chaotic learning environment.
Secondly, I am always amazed at how many people don't believe in the success AUSL schools have had? I wonder why not? Could it be that you don't believe these poor Black children can truly meet/exceeds standards? It smacks of racism to me. See I am happy everytime I hear about ANY school that has managed to raise student achievement. It doesn't matter who manages the school. Because it lets me know that if they can do it then my school can too. In fact, instead of putting them down I am trying to go visit to steal some of their great ideas!
It is unfair to compare Phillips HS to a selective enrollment school. Of course we all want our children to go to the best schools. But the reality is not every child can go to Whitney Young or Walter Payton. So what do we do for the students not enrolled in those schools? That is why it is important for AUSL to do the work that they do in neighborhood schools. EVERY child deserves a good education, not just those in selective enrollment schools.
And for those who want to talk about the fact that they dismiss all staff in a turnaround school, let me say this. No one in CPS has a right to keep their jobs simply because they've been there for so long. If students are failing and have been for years then we should all be demanding a turnaround! Every teacher in AUSL schools is a certified UNION teacher. So no one is taking jobs away from teachers- turnarounds simply give other teachers a chance to do what hasn't been done in all of these years.
I will end by saying if a school is failing, the blame lies with the staff starting with the principal. You do not blame the students, instead you give them what they need to be successful. KUDOS to AUSL and every school changing the lives of students throughout CPS. We need more great schools like these.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Dear CPS Adminstrator,
You are dilusional if you think that all schools who fail are the result of a chaotic learning environment. Before SB 620 passed, CPS could send high numbers of NCLB students to a school and in the case of Drake, Douglas and Mayo, all were impacted in such a way that caused the schools to end up on probation. Some of the students also came from South Loop School which caused a boost in their scores. There were 3 schools in the Douglas region destroyed as a result of this process. Sometimes the reason given was that another school needed capital improvements and schools were told that the move would be temporary and that standardized test scores of the performing school would not be affected. However this was not the case. I also disagree that all failing schools should be a turnaround. Some schools were destroyed by CPS actions as in the case of the schools mentioned. So I disagree that these successful teachers would need to step aside for AUSL. I remember talking to a previous Principal in my community when Daniel Hale Williams students were going to be dumped in Douglas. Our school was under duress to accept these kids because Arne Duncan wanted to move them, when NTA was vacant, newly built and available. Flyers for the move was posted on trees in our community and when they arrived they tore up the playground and destroyed the performance of our school. Your job title as a CPS Administrator means nothing to me. We the parents see plenty and you can pretend that CPS has been following all the rules but you are certainly misinformed. Some schools actually achieve by not accepting back all of their students from a temporary move, as was the case for Williams. Furthermore, Dunbar High School should not become a turnaround. They have been failing for 20 years and most of the students are from the far southside and generate ongoing mob activity everyday after school. They need to attend school in their own community because we have certinly has enough of turnaround programs.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
To; CPS Administrator
Phillips had 746 students. So it is reasonable to assume that 1/4 would be seniors. (approx. 187 students) However it was reported that Phillips had 87 seniors, of which only 47 graduated. What happened to the other students?? Would the gains by AUSL seem significant in this case, based on what they started out with???? Do the real math. What's a parent to think??
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
tell it like it is--right on.
Students do disappear at AUSL schools
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Thank you CPS Administrator. You are right on. Let me add that people who call frequent assessments throughout the year "teaching to the test" are incorrect. Smart teachers and schools teach to the STANDARDS, and they measure the effectiveness of their instruction and find out their students' needs on an ongoing basis through the use of assessments. Some of those assessments may look like ISAT or standardized test style, but the ISAT test is not the point, the STANDARDS are, and the skills and knowledge that are expected according to the standards. Here's an analogy: I don't eat healthy, watch my diet and do other things every day so that I can "pass" the "test" (my annual physical at the doctor's office), I do it because it's good for me. Likewise, the things teachers teach and then assess for are things students need to know . . . math, reading, etc. And please don't tell me that standardized tests aren't rigorous enough and then in the same breath make excuses about why our students are doing so poorly on such an (according to all the excuse-makers) easy test. If the test is challenging, then teach your students the skills, content and knowledge they need to master the standards. Their skill and knowledge will be reflected in their ISAT scores. If the test is "dumbed down" or "lower order thinking" as so many claim, then why the hell can't so many of our students answer even the most basic questions?
I'm neither defending nor bashing AUSL, but the results their getting overall (at least at the elementary schools . . . not sure about the high schools yet) are far better than other CPS schools. And doesn't the model of providing teachers candidates with a year's training under the direct supervision of a successful teacher make sense? Should we be surprised that those teachers are doing well?
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
Doesn't this prove that turnarounds are the answer? The magic bullet we've all been waiting for. Coincidentally, it also is the answer to our economic problems because the CPS administrator said no one deserves a job because you've been around a long time (TAKE THAT CTU)
So all new teachers to save the poor inner city children will increase the scores. Until they don't, then time to get rid of all those new, earnest "work their butts off" folk. Then they'll be confused when they "jumped through all the hoops" and still get the boot.
What you don't see is that those scores from AUSL are still terribly low, but all they're looking at is an increase.
Do you think the teachers at Whitney Young made their students get perfect scores on ACT? The reason there are selective enrollment high schools is to continue to SELECT the really good test takers away from neighborhoods that contain Hubbard, Crane and Phillips (unless they can play a sport). So are the teachers at the selective enrollment schools "working their butts off?" Nope. They don't have to.
For the Record: ISAT vs EXPLORE
So you can take a 14 year old and let them rot in a classroom with uncaring, lazy teachers for 3 years, and magically they get excellent scores on the ACT? WHAT?!
Teachers at the SE schools work quite hard. To imply otherwise is not only rude, but ignorant.
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