Local students performed better than their national peers in math than in reading.
| Update
ELMHURST, Ill. – Statistics show that eighth graders in Elmhurst tend to perform poorly on reading tests compared to their peers across the nation.
Not so in mathematics.
subscribe
On Tuesday, Elmhurst School District 205 board members noted a downward trend in reading achievement for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
In kindergarten, the average Elmhurst student performed at or above the performance of 87 percent of their peers nationwide. This performance dropped to 77 percent in first grade, 67 percent in sixth grade, and remained at this level through eighth grade.
For all students in kindergarten through eighth grade combined, their reading test scores were at or above 73 percent of their peers nationwide.
“This trend is not something that just started this spring, but has been seen in previous iterations of the same assessment,” said Jacob Wertz, the district’s research director.
Board member Jim Collins asked if the district had similar data showing how performance in specific grades trended over time, to which Wertz responded that he hadn’t seen the numbers precisely like that.
When it comes to math achievement, grades for kindergarten through eighth grade students in School District 205 were more stable.
The data show that on average, kindergarten students nationwide are performing at or above the performance of 86 percent of their grade-level peers, a percentage that will trend between 80 percent and 87 percent over the next four years.
It then drops to 77 percent for fifth and sixth graders, then rises to 80 percent and 82 percent for seventh and eighth graders, respectively.
Overall, Elmhurst kindergarten through eighth grade students performed at or above the level of 82 percent of their peers nationwide in math.
“We’ve seen some great improvements year over year,” Collins said. “What’s driving that?”
Wirtz said this is the result of investing in “high-quality” learning materials, specialized learning plans and collaboration with mentors and educators.
sauce: Elmhurst School District 205
