DISTRICT NEWS & PR |
SCHOOL REPORT CARDS: Poverty rates matter
November 02, 2009
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Scott Cousins
Collinsville Herald
November 01, 2009 |
How outside factors influence tests
What goes on inside the classroom can be heavily influenced by things outside the school. Poverty levels or setting, rural or urban, can make a difference in performance that shows up on test scores, according to Kathleen Sullivan Brown, executive director of the Illinois Education Research Council, a state agency which does independent educational research and is based at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
“Is it fair to compare them?” she said. “A smaller district may not be able to offer (advanced placement) courses, and may not have all the labs and resources that a larger school district has.”
Demographics can also play a big role in how students perform on tests. Two of the best indicators of how students will do are poverty and mobility, Brown said.
The two lowest scoring school districts in the Suburban Journals circulation area in the Metro East are Venice (kindergarten-eighth) and Brooklyn (kindergarten-12th grade), with about 45 percent of elementary school students meeting or exceeding state standards.
Two of the highest scoring are Columbia and Edwardsville (both K-12), where approximately 91 percent of students meet or exceed state standards.
In both the Venice and Brooklyn districts, the poverty rate among students is 95 percent, according to the 2008 school report cards. Columbia’s is 6.6 percent, and Edwardsville’s 13.8 percent.
“Poverty does not cause children not to learn, but it’s associated with a whole host of other things,” Brown said.
Those issues can range from poor medical care to parents working two jobs and not being able to check homework or supervise the child.
Mobility, which can be related to poverty, refers to the number of students who move in or out of a classroom during a given year.
“Poor people have to keep moving,” Brown said.
Again, both Venice and Lovejoy have mobility rates nearly twice the state average of 14.9 percent, while Edwardsville and Columbia districts are half the state average.
Brown said a high mobility rate creates difficulties because the students get behind, and teachers have to take time to help the student become adjusted to the new class.
Other factors can also make a large difference in test scores.
Julie Brown, assistant principal for curriculum and instruction in the Collinsville school district, said the 2009 data show that two elementary schools, Kreitner and Caseyville, have large differences between reading and math scores.
Brown said one of the reasons for the difference is a large number of Hispanic students.
While they may struggle with reading, she said their math skills remain the same regardless of language.
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