The Illinois Report Card, an overview of school performance throughout the state compiled by the Illinois State Board of Education, was publicly released Monday.

While the past two report cards were hugely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and precautions taken during its height, this year’s report shows some notable improvements.

Among the more notable figures which saw improvement over last year’s report was the English Language Arts component of the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, which is used as a measure of performance for grades 3-8.

Across the state, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding this part of the IAR stands at 35.4 percent, up quite a bit compared to last year’s 30.1 percent and the 2021 figure of 30.2 percent.

For statewide IAR performance in mathematics, 27.1 percent of students performed at or above their expected level, up from 25.5 percent in 2022 and 25.2 percent in 2021.

Both these figures are still several points below the pre-pandemic 2019 percentages.

The SAT, which is used as a measure of performance for 11th grade, has been more varied.

For ELA, the figures  for 2023, 2022 and 2021 have fluctuated at 31.6 percent, 29.8 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

In mathematics, this year saw a decrease in performance with 26.7 percent of students meeting or exceeding expectations. Last year’s figure was 28.5 percent, and 2021’s was 29.3 percent.

These latest figures are also down several points from the pre-pandemic figures.

Four-year high school graduation rates have shown slight growth these past three years, with an 87.6 percent graduation rate in 2023, 87.3 percent in 2022 and 86.8 percent in 2021.

Per an article from Capitol News Illinois titled “Latest state school report card shows proficiency gains, persistent gaps on racial lines,” State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders spoke positively about statewide school performance amid the ongoing pandemic recovery.

“Educators and families should be proud of the remarkable progress we see on the 2023 Illinois report card while remaining focused on understanding and meeting the students’ academic and social emotional needs at this phase of recovery,” Sanders said.

Like the state averages, local schools also showed generally positive progress on this year’s report card.

For the IAR’s ELA component, Waterloo’s percentage of students meeting or exceeding their performance level bumped up significantly to 58.4 percent from last year’s 48.1 percent, reaching just a few points below 2019’s 62.6 percent.

The district’s IAR mathematics performance saw similar improvement, with 49.6 percent this year compared to 43.4 percent last year. The 2019 figure was 57.1 percent.

Waterloo grades 6-12 curriculum coordinator John Schmieg spoke positively about what these figures represent for the district following the pandemic.

“Just looking at the data and how we’re growing from one year to the next, we’re definitely going in the right direction,” Schmieg said. “We’re getting to a couple years out from a pandemic. We put a lot of things into place during the pandemic using federal funds, and I think what the data is showing us is some of those if not all of those things that we’ve done for students is starting to show us some growth and closing gaps.”

Columbia also saw positive developments. Its IAR ELA numbers this year indicate 49.8 percent of students are at or above their performance level, notably up from 40.6 percent last year, and quite close to the 2019 figure of 53.2 percent.

In mathematics, the IAR percentage increase was less substantial for Columbia at 46.1 percent over last year’s 45.9 percent and 2019’s 61.2 percent.

Still, Columbia Assistant Superintendent of Schools Alyssa Smith was enthusiastic about the district’s progress in math and elsewhere.

“What we can glean so far from it is that we have switched over to a new math theory, and we have already seen the proficiency ratings grow with our students for math,” Smith said. “That is exciting. I think what we also can see from looking at it is we have no underperforming subgroups, so all of our students are performing at what the state would expect – actually much higher than what the state expects.”

Differing significantly from Waterloo and Columbia given its size, the Valmeyer school district was slightly more troubled this year with only 11.9  percent of students performing at ELA grade level compared to last year’s 24.7 percent performing at or above.

A similar decrease was seen in mathematics with 17.1 percent this year, down from 23.3 last year.

As for SAT figures, Waterloo’s performance was up slightly in ELA – 43.3 percent this year and 39.6 percent last year – but down in mathematics – 40.4 percent and 41.8 percent.

Columbia saw decreases in both ELA and math, with ELA scores at 38.8 percent this year and 43.7 percent last year. Math figures were 34.7 percent this year and 43.6 percent last year.

Valmeyer SAT performance was up, with ELA going to 34.3 percent this year over 20 percent last year. Valmeyer’s math score this year was 22.9 percent over last year’s 10 percent.

Schmieg noted that these SAT figures – as well as the IAR figures – can be useful but still difficult to understand and work with given how challenging the tests themselves are.

“The SAT and the IAR are very difficult tests,” Schmieg said. “There’s a set of Illinois state standards that we teach, and especially on the SAT, there’s a wide range. No matter a student’s ability level or what classes they took, they’re getting the same questions. Whenever you see a proficiency rate of 41.2 or, I think this year is around 40 percent, you’ve got to remember these are very difficult tests.”

Local schools performed positively in a number of other areas such as summative designation which denotes academic performance and student success.

Two schools in Waterloo were labeled as “exemplary” while three were labeled “commendable” – the two highest designations.

From Columbia, one school received an “exemplary” designation while the remaining three were considered “commendable.”

Valmeyer’s three-school district received a “commendable” designation across the board.

All three Monroe County school districts performed well in a number of other areas, including chronic absenteeism, graduation rates and ninth grade on track – a figure which denotes the percentage of freshman earning five full-year course credits with no more than one semester “F” in a core course.

The report card and its many figures are used to evaluate the district’s performance in comparison to other districts in the area, particularly those of comparable size.

Schmieg noted that, now that the reports are available publicly, districts will likely be contacting one another to compare curriculums and identify any gaps that might exist in their own work.

Both he and Smith acknowledged there is plenty of work left to do when it comes to comparing district performances.

Smith in particular focused on how Columbia administration will be considering how individual classes have progressed from year to year.

“It gives us a chance to really just stop and break apart where we are growing,” Smith said. “So we really are looking to compare ourselves year to year, but we spend a lot more diving down into the actual grade level. So we will break down the data and spend a lot of time studying this years fifth graders to how they performed last year as fourth graders, because our goal is to always close the gap for that grade level and not necessarily worry about how this year’s fifth graders did compared to last year’s fifth graders.”

For more information on the Illinois Report Card or to view local reports, visit illinoisreportcard.com.