A majority of students in traditionally high performing Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills Elementary District 181 met or exceeded expectations on the 2017 Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.
“In general, we did very well,” said Joan Woolwine, interim assistant superintendent of learning for District 181. “Tests always help because they give us another indicator. The data allows us to have a conversation on what we can do better.”
One result that stood out is that 8 percent of students at Clarendon Hills Middle School, and 9 percent at Hinsdale Middle School, exceeded expectations, compared to a range of 24 to 33 percent at the district’s seven elementary schools.
Woolwine said staff is still looking through Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test data and doesn’t have an explanation for the significant difference between the middle and elementary schools. She said building teams will consider the data as part of their school improvement plan efforts.
Woolwine said the PARCC assessment is based on Common Core standards, which are being implemented in the district for the first time this year.
“This is our first year of implementing our English language arts curriculum that is aligned to the Illinois state standards,” she said.
PARCC is an assessment and accountability measure for Illinois public school students and has five performance levels: exceeded expectations, met expectations, approached expectations, partially met expectations and did not meet expectations.
Students in third through eighth grades were assessed in a computer-based format in the spring of 2017 in the areas of English language arts and math, based on Illinois learning standards.
For math, students were asked to show their understanding of multistep problems. For English language arts, students were asked to demonstrate their understanding through writing and analyzing text.
At Clarendon Hills Middle School and Hinsdale Middle School, assessment results for English language arts indicated that 23 percent of CHMS students exceeded expectations, compared to 15 percent at HMS. However, the combined exceeded and met expectations is very similar: 70 percent for CHMS and 69 percent for HMS.
Among District 181’s elementary schools, the range of students exceeding expectations in English language arts ranged from 13 percent at Walker School to 24 percent at The Lane School.
When combining students who met or exceeded expectations, the range was from 67 percent at Elm School to 83 percent at The Lane.
For the math assessment, 65 percent at HMS met or exceeded, and 63 percent met or exceeded at CHMS.
Math results at the elementary schools ranged from 24 percent at Monroe School to 33 percent at Madison School exceeding expectations and 71 percent at Monroe to 81 percent at The Lane exceeding.
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