Following up on yesterday’s post: On the front page of a tiny, local newspaper, the column on the left is titled “D-34 Gives Raises, Shrinks School Year.” School District 34 can be found in Glenview in the Illinois North suburbs. Glenview is one of a number of adjacent, middle-class communities where ice cream, soccer, Little League teams, swimming pools and parks abound. D-34 is another district that’s rocking the test score game,

One of its middle schools lists only 16% low income students, with 4% English learners.* A full 56% of the students at that school passed the PARCC test. That’s impressive. The other middle school lists 30% low income students and 5% English learners. That school reached a passing rate of 49%, considerably better than the state as a whole.

I could start tearing the numbers in the state report apart. If I did, I’d note, for example, that overall the district has 15% English learners — suggesting that the district is doing a solid job of preparing students to exit bilingual programs and/or the district is seeing an influx of English learners in the earlier grades. The truth will likely be a combination of exits and entrances.

But I can be too much of a numbers geek. Let’s just look at the thought that struck me immediately when I saw the article. Glenview 34 is a “safe” district. Overall, only 33% of Illinois students passed the PARCC test for 2014 – 2015, a number that hides wide swings between districts. In Waukegan 60, a district with 17,000 students, only 14% passed, for example.

What does it mean to be a safe district? For one thing, a safe district can shave two days off the school year while giving raises. That district’s teachers and students don’t have to start school in July or early August to maximize the amount of time students spend in school before the annual state test. The district can have a state website that says almost nothing except what’s legally required about testing. The impact of testing in District 34 can be minimized, because its students are succeeding in the testing game overall. That translates to free administrative time to plan and prepare all the bells and whistles that create an enriching school experience — spirit assemblies, whole child education, and differentiated instruction based on student needs.

District 34 still has to do all the required state and federal assessment, and is doing its own internal assessment as well, but its leaders can create a balanced school experience that lacks that sense of frantic desperation that can pervade our lowest scoring schools. In District 34, principals and teachers are not worried about losing their jobs because of test scores. They are free to worry about improving their students lives by preparing them for future educational opportunities, the traditional mission of educators.

Eduhonesty: I will say, we educators worry a lot regardless 🙂

• Sites used are the following:  http://www.illinoisreportcard.com/School.aspxschoolid=050160340041006 and http://www.illinoisreportcard.com/School.aspx?schoolId=050160340041007, http://www.illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?districtId=34049060026
• The article can be found in The North Shore Weekend, a JWC Media Publication