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Looking at the link for Taft further, I notice that the link reads "ACT College Readiness Benchmarks (CRB) by All Students - All Subjects 2012-16". I'm not from Illinois, so I'm not sure what the criteria is for testing (and the site doesn't allow me to see on a grade level by grade level basis).
Which grade levels are tested? I'm wondering if they have the 7th and 8th grade students take the ACT? If so, does the level which someone is "college ready" change based on grade level or is it the same level regardless of the grade level? (Unlike the other schools Taft has the 7th and 8th grades.)
From Houston I can say that even though comprehensive high schools generally do separate by ability, not every one is deemed "acceptable" by the middle class.
Although I have been out of high school for 15 years, I would guess that only kids getting ready for college applications (juniors and seniors) and maybe incredibly advanced kids below junior would take the exam.
My cousin is a pretty smart kid and a junior at Jones College Prep (a CPS magnet school) and hadn't taken it as of Easter weekend. I doubt you're reading data that is skewed by something obscure like Taft having 7th and 8th graders, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong if a large population of lower grade students are suddenly sitting for it in recent years.
This year the whole state switched from ACT to SAT to assess college readiness, ALL students are tested in the 11th grade, there is no "picking and choosing" of who takes the test or when it is administered.
Folks who are trying to wave away the poor results of Taft are doing nobody any good. There are other CPS schools with 7th & 8th graders and they have MUCH superior college readiness; that assessment is made ONLY of 11th graders. There are other tests administered to assess the other grades and Taft is doing poorly on those as well.
Although I have been out of high school for 15 years, I would guess that only kids getting ready for college applications (juniors and seniors) and maybe incredibly advanced kids below junior would take the exam.
My cousin is a pretty smart kid and a junior at Jones College Prep (a CPS magnet school) and hadn't taken it as of Easter weekend. I doubt you're reading data that is skewed by something obscure like Taft having 7th and 8th graders, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong if a large population of lower grade students are suddenly sitting for it in recent years.
Although upwards of 50 thousand middle schoolers in the US take it that early, it's mostly for practice purposes. A more common need for such a test at that early age is for specific programs, such as Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development (CTD). Specific universities may reach out to very talented younger students prior to high school. See here:
Although upwards of 50 thousand middle schoolers in the US take it that early, it's mostly for practice purposes. A more common need for such a test at that early age is for specific programs, such as Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development (CTD). Specific universities may reach out to very talented younger students prior to high school. See here:
If you are just filling the details of who MAY take tests like the ACT or SAT for purposes other than REQUIRED state assessments or college admissions your information is correct. IF YOU ARE INSTEAD suggesting the Taft or some other high school is incorrectly dinged for having younger students take such test YOU ARE WRONG -- students are NEVER compared across GRADE LEVELS: https://iirc.niu.edu/Classic/WhatStu...e2=performance
Newsflash -- all schools have different "levels" of class and "ability grouping" is pretty much universal in high schools. THAT does not change the FACT that more than 80% of the kids at Taft are not performing at a level that would indicate they are prepared for college.
The fact the so few kids at Taft are prepared for higher education should be a RED FLAG that explains why parents who have better options choose them...
It is not helping anyone to sugarcoat the sad reality that CPS is not serving HUGE numbers of the students that it should be -- the kids that are not being adequately prepared for college are going to end up making the problems of Chicago and the region worse.
I don't think anyone here is trying to sugarcoat anything, Chet. Taft is an option for families who live on the NW Side. No, it's not the best school (no one ever said it was), but with its AP/IB programs, students can get an academically rigorous education. The point is that it is one of the few neighborhood high schools in Chicago that is a realistic option for families. And I emphasize the word "option" because like I originally said, NW side families also have their choice between private schools and applying for CPS selective enrollment.
I don't think anyone here is trying to sugarcoat anything, Chet. Taft is an option for families who live on the NW Side. No, it's not the best school (no one ever said it was), but with its AP/IB programs, students can get an academically rigorous education. The point is that it is one of the few neighborhood high schools in Chicago that is a realistic option for families. And I emphasize the word "option" because like I originally said, NW side families also have their choice between private schools and applying for CPS selective enrollment.
Unfortunately I have to disagree. Despite the attempt of several schools in CPS to offer IB classes to kids that do not meet the criteria of selective enrollment options, the gulf between CPS excellently performing selective enrollment schools and the other schools is huge and growing worse.
What CPS is doing is not laudable but sadly misguided. The fact is they are abusing the "brand name" of International Baccalaureate to try to keep families from leaving the city system but without adequate preparation or support so many students fail to meet the standards that really none of the kids are well served.
The fact is the content and pace of IB classes is very demanding and even in a high performing setting relatively few teachers or students would be able to handle such courses. When administrators who are desperate to keep their schools off the closing list to save their own jobs decide to use IB as a sort of perverse marketing hook there is a real danger that kids who would have been better served by classes that would at least get them up a level where they'd have a legitimate shot at middle-of-road colleges are instead so discouraged by their failure to attain the performance needed for upper-tier colleges that they give up on ANY college plans...
What CPS is doing is neither commendable nor ethical -- like dangling juicy slices of Prime Rib at starving prisoners behind bars the cruel torture of dangling potential rewards in front of kids with no legitimate shot at success only reinforces the mindset of insiders serving their own needs while students suffer.
The thing too is that there are no shortages of other models that CPS could be using. The fact is not every kids going to a private school is taking a very rigorous set of courses. Schools like Francis Parker, Latin, Lab, and many of the traditional Catholic high schools are not funneling their whole student body into the most prestigious colleges; lots of the kids earning those diplomas in the next few weeks will be going to smaller liberal arts schools and colleges that are more about having four years to grow into a more polished adult than in solving the challenges of STEM.
Once upon a time there were teachers and principals in CPS that took the time to explain those things to all the parents and students. The kids that graduated from CPS high schools and then went on to four years at Eastern Illinois or another of the lower ranked state schools absolutely could and can have decent careers in a wide range of fields. If those kids also earn advanced degrees like an MBA or similar professional type credential from a more widely respected university they too can still "open doors" of new opportunities down the road. Tremendous numbers of kids who go to SIU major in fields related to things related to the vast environmental / outdoor resources that the US still has -- while fewer jobs are required these days on actual farms, folks with the skills to understand the challenges of environmental concerns are still very much in the demand across the country. So to has there been an explosion of demand for people with the knowledge, desire, and hands on skills to be involved in more artisanal foods -- from cheese, beer, and craft spirits to creative commercialization of more obscure crops to cooking on both individual and mass scale there are more paths for folks interested in those areas than ever before. Even as the big food companies shrink from their overhyped mergers Chicago remains a vitally important location for this major industry yet CPS largely ignores that role. Even the efforts of the City Colleges are more geared to the vocational aspects of cooking as opposed to the more intensive needs of the sorts of mass distribution of food...
Instead of "selling" something like IB to kids that is largely outside of their grasp due to under-preparation throughout the eight years prior to high school, the non-selective admissions schools of CPS should instead think of better ways to get the students they should be serving from the place they are at to a more realistically attainable goal. Unfortunately the support for such things is not going to come from a BOE controlled by a clueless and detached mayor who makes pronouncements designed not to help anyone but himself. RAHM EMANUEL’S GRADUATION REQUIREMENT SHOWS HE HAS ‘NO INTEREST IN UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUES
I just have to add again, Lincoln Park High School is not selective enrollment and students receive a fantastic education, as good as the selective enrollment schools. The IB program there is not smoke and mirrors.
Based on this thoughtful reply from California teacher Richard Geib: Vocational Instruction - I agree that focusing more on vocational education would be helpful:
Quote:
"Whether or not they are students, young people will always more or less work from nine to five in their lives. Whether they go into the work world or not right after high school and return to serious study later as their goals in life change seems not too important to me; in California, many of the best students are "late bloomers" who do poorly in high school, but excel in community colleges and then go on to higher education from there. But many people are just pretty average with respect to their intellectual gifts, and therefore don't enjoy school or books much -- that is the truth, even as we have created "colleges" like the Cal State system which so often serve as glorified high schools for those lacking basic skills, or deluded ourselves into thinking that a high school diploma automatically means a person can read and write. Of course many average intellects make maximum use of their brains and enjoy academic success; however, I would not patronize a teenager by saying I knew better what he wanted. You can guide, offer advice, love and support - but you cannot make a person learn. It simply is not possible.
I would let teenagers drop out of college prep courses and pursue more vocational studies if they wanted. You might allow some kids to hurt their futures and take courses of action contrary to their best interests; but that is a worthy price to pay to change the present high school culture where so many young people sit as virtual prisoners in classes in which they have no interest and little desire to learn. Having little desire to learn, such students make almost no effort to learn; and, as a consequence, everyone wastes their time. Many of the students who do want to learn are deprived of that option by the troublemakers and rebels; we should, at the very least!, teach them instead of letting the worst drag everyone down with them! Everyone is discouraged! (Some students egregiously violate the school rules precisely in the hopes they will once and for all be kicked out of school - something almost impossible to do, in our lax system of public school discipline!) It is specious to say that all young people can succeed in school, even if that be the mantra of the present education system. Some people will succeed in life - only not in calculus or AP English classes. And we should serve them, too. (Or do we only love those young people going the college prep route?) But of course for political reasons this will not happen.
It could hardly get worse -- especially in low-income areas -- than it is presently. And I think more vocational classes would be a good start to making "schools" in such areas worthy of the name. Maybe we could teach some young people on the verge of adulthood who long ago gave up on their academic careers something useful that will help them upon graduation. Having taught in a "school" in a low-income area (and elsewhere), I speak from personal experience. But to say all this is to go against the shibboleths (ie. "Every student should go to college!!") of the American public school system. "
CPS has to tout IB to capture the upper/middle class, but the way for it to secure the lower classes is to focus on vocational education.
High school is no place for students who don't know their multiplication tables. Can you picture Harvard Westlake accepting a student who didn't know fractions? I believe it is a reasonable expectation that entering freshmen should be able to read and write. It also is reasonable to expect that students will carry books and pencils and paper. Depending on when you last visited a public high school, you may or may not be surprised to see how many teenagers don't. The problem with this stance is that, unencumbered by the accouterments of a scholar, let alone his habits of mind, there is little incentive to behave like one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chet everett
Even as the big food companies shrink from their overhyped mergers Chicago remains a vitally important location for this major industry yet CPS largely ignores that role. Even the efforts of the City Colleges are more geared to the vocational aspects of cooking as opposed to the more intensive needs of the sorts of mass distribution of food...
Instead of "selling" something like IB to kids that is largely outside of their grasp due to under-preparation throughout the eight years prior to high school, the non-selective admissions schools of CPS should instead think of better ways to get the students they should be serving from the place they are at to a more realistically attainable goal. Unfortunately the support for such things is not going to come from a BOE controlled by a clueless and detached mayor who makes pronouncements designed not to help anyone but himself. RAHM EMANUEL’S GRADUATION REQUIREMENT SHOWS HE HAS ‘NO INTEREST IN UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUES
While LPHS does have a component that serves kids in its attendance area, the fact is about 3/4 of the students are in the MAGNET programs at the school. Those programs do require ADMISSIONS testing and the school typically gets about 400% more applications than it has room for -- Lincoln Park High School
This makes it pretty hard to recommend targeting Lincoln Park even for the very well off folks that can afford a home inside the attendance boundaries -- if the seats for things like the IB program are full of kids with the temperament and preparation to do well in those classes lots of kids from within the attendance boundaries who did not apply for the IB program are going to be shuffled into some rather less rigorous courses. It is certainly better than the charade that other CPS schools are involved, as fewer of the the kids in the LPHS attendance zone are underprepared but the student make-up is still facing challenges that are unknown in nicer suburbs. More than 55% of the students are low income, even more disturbing a solid 33% of the students enrolled have missed so much class to be in the "chronic truant"category -- https://iirc.niu.edu/Classic/School....250047&level=S Approximately 17% of the students entering do not earn a diploma in 4 years...
For comparison I'll again use data from Wheeling HS, the worst performing of the schools in D214, low income is still quite high at almost 43%, but four year graduation is an excellent 91.2% and chronic truants is way down below 1% -- that sort of data pretty clearly says that even the "best" neighborhood high school in the entire CPS system is dealing with a very different population than what is among the least desirable a of suburban system. https://iirc.niu.edu/Classic/School....170006&level=S I certainly know that there are different kinds of employment options for families out near Wheeling and that obviously helps with lots of the issues but it is important to realize that even if one could somehow "equalize" those kinds of factors there is undoubtedly LOTS MORE wrong with the overall direction of CPS...
Part of me agrees that the near exclusive focus on "college prep" is a badly misguided direction that CPS has been engaged in for far too long. The fact is D214, that includes Wheeling HS, has long has good coordination with resources like Harper Community College to help kids move toward to careers that are both within their reach and capable of paying good wages -- http://www.d214.org/assets/1/6/D214C...915_online.pdf The further fact is that one can see that relative ease that students have in moving from high school to emplyoment with a solid background in the sorts of skills that are fostered in the "desktop support / computer repair" classes that are offered with Harper -- - Career and Technical Education | Wheeling High School
In contrast the much more "splashy" efforts of the former Sec. of Ed and basketball playing pal of the President to promote "nano-manufacturing" seem to have no references other than this press opportunity for four years ago -- Duncan inspired, amazed by Wheeling High School lab ...
Without getting too far off track, it is pretty clear that "good intentions" and "dreams" are not effective while responding to REAL demands from the marketplace can have positive effects. I would caution anyone hoping for a positive experience in CPS with hopes for any kind of vocational efforts to keep these lessons in mind.
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Yes but...
