Area Superintendent Critical of State Testing, Other Criteria Ranking School Districts

The Rantoul City Schools are among the nearly 2,000 Illinois schools that did not make Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, this year.

Superintendent Bill Trankina called the Illinois Student Achievement Test a mere snapshot of performance. His district includes four grade schools and a middle school.

Rantoul Township High School has a separate administration, but it also failed to make AYP. Trankina noted that his district has a mobility rate of about 35-percent, and a poverty rate of over 80-percent. Still, he said students are making fundamental changes in reading and writing. He noted that his district has installed smart boards into each classroom, which should help state test scores. Trankina said he is frustrated by the lack of clarity on the state's report card, citing an example of how a subgroup's performance impacts an entire district.

"If a child attended school all day everyday, had passing grades, then in the fourth quarter happened to fail one course, and (the district said) 'we know your child passed everything every quarter, except for the fourth quarter they fail one subject - your child's going to be retained for next year," Trankina said. "Immediately the parent would be very upset. I think we all see the absurdity in that example."

Trankina also said analyzing test scores in two time periods with different standards really is not a fair comparison.

"To a certain degree, we're being evaluated and placed on certain academic watch status based upon how students did when the standards were administered in the past," Trankina said. "And we think that only compounds to the confusion that most people feel about the standards."

Trankina also said it is terribly unfair that the performance of one subgroup on the Illinois Student Achievement Test would decide whether the entire district made AYP. On a local level, he said the district is making strides with a new writing and reading curriculum.