The 2002 Illinois School Report Card indeed highlights alarming differences between white students and minorities (Page 1, Nov. 15). Statistics from the best of the best schools, including Naperville Central and Barrington High, with a differential in white-to-minority scores exceeding 50 percent for various categories, is reason for concern.
What needs to be evaluated, however, is how the schools performed on a student-by-student basis compared to an individual student’s previous test score. For instance, a 27 percent pass rating for Hispanics for the standard reading test in Barrington may actually be a relative success, if the same collection of Hispanic students had only a 15 percent pass rating prior to entering the school. Measuring year-over-year improvements of a group of students is more meaningful in showing the progress a school delivers. While schools cannot control all of the social factors that lead to the disparities the study highlights, they can focus on incrementally improving individual minority students’ progress from year to year, and should be rewarded accordingly.
