The state's annual school report cards are out. You can check out the elementary school results or the high school ratings and guess what? The poor schools have the lowest rankings and the rich schools have the highest rankings. Stop the presses!
This trend has been the same since Illinois began this exercise of grading schools on the Prairie State Achievement Test, part of the federal No Child Left Behind mandates. It's really sad to see every year that North Chicago schools line up at the bottom of the pile, while school officials there play "swap the superintendent" every year or so. They need to get their priorities straight, which should be students.
It's also sad that many of the high schools are below the state's percentage goal on reading scores. Now, The Hound doesn't think there's that many stupid students in Lake County schools. What happens, though, is that you have to mixin the special ed kid scores with the general student population. What does that show? That special ed kids drop test scores, that's what. Other causes of dropping scores is low-income and Spanish-speaking students. That should be no surprise to state educators.
What also should be no surprise to state educators is that these annual report cards are folly. Local school district officials have no doubt told them this, but they are caught in a daze, like The Hound used to have while daydreaming while looking out the window at corn fields ready for harvest around this time of the year.
The Hound also notes that his grade school was above the state goal, while his high school was below and remains on the state's watch list. And The Hound wonders why he's in this business.
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