February 1, 2002

Red or Gold the apple goes to Charleston

After several years of coming close, students in Charleston get to taste the Red Apple.
   The year 2001 "Red Apple" goes to the Red and Gold Charleston Trojans for students' performance on the Illinois Goal Assessment Program and Illinois
Standard Achievement Tests. Charleston topped the 17 school districts in the Times- Courier Journal Gazette circulation area.
     The tests were administered last spring in the 2000-2001 school year. Charleston tied for third with Mattoon last year. Charleston also was second in the Red Apple standings in 1998 and in 1995.
      Sullivan, for the second straight year, finished a close second while Bethany finished third. Arthur and Arcola tied for fourth.
      Seven different districts have won the Red Apple in the 15 years that the Times- Courier and Journal Gazette have been printing data from area school district report cards.
    The "Red Apple" goes to the school district that fares best in the "sophisticated,  highly complex, technologically advanced" scoring system of yours truly. All figures are taken from the school district report cards that all Illinois school districts distribute in the fall.
      I take the overall scores in reading, math, writing, science and social science that were published in today's newspaper. I also include the average ACT scores from each district.
       Those rankings are doubled and then the district rankings on per-pupil spending and the percentage of low- income students are added in reverse order .
       The thinking is that districts with a lower percentage of low-income students and those that spend more money per student should achieve better test results.
   Conversely, districts that have a higher percentage of low-income students and
those that do not spend as much money are at a disadvantage.
        Charleston students had the fifth-best test scores out of the 17 districts (with an average of 69 percent of all students meeting or exceeding state goals) and had the third- highest average ACT score - a 22.8 composite. And out of the 17districts,Charleston had the seventh-highest percentage of low-income students -23.5 percent. And eight districts spent more money per pupil than Charleston.
        For the second consecutive year, Sullivan posted the best test scores -80.3 percent of all the Sullivan students met or exceeded state goals. Sullivan students posted the eight-best ACT scores and only two districts in the area spend less money than does Sullivan.
     Students in Arthur posted the second-highest average test scores as 74.2 percent of all students tested met or exceeded the state goals. Bethany recorded the highest average ACT score in the area with a 24.3 composite.
      Regardless of where each school district placed in our "Red Apple" standings, area students scored high in most areas. Cumberland, which had the lowest test scores in the area, still had 60 percent of all its students meet or exceed the state goals.
      Writing continues to be the subject with the lowest scores. Eight districts failed to reach the state average in writing in Grades 5, 8 and 11. In Grade 3, seven districts failed to match the state average.
   Bill Lair is managing editor of the Times-Courier and the Journal Gazette. Contact lair at blair@jg-tc.com.

Used with permission from Mid-Illinois Newspapers
Publishers of the Mattoon Journal Gazette and the Charleston Times-Courier