A report released last Tuesday shows Illinois is at the national average for high school graduates scoring high enough for college credit on exams, but low-income and black students still lag in performance and participation in the college prep courses.
According to an Advanced Placement Program report, 21 percent of the state's high school graduates in Illinois received a three or higher on at least one AP exam, which is typically the score needed for college credit. The national average was 20 percent in 2013. Participation and performance in Advanced Placement coursework is up across the country and in Illinois the past 10 years.
"The latest AP exam results are further proof that our efforts are on the right track," Christopher Koch, the state's superintendent of education, said in a statement.
For the state's low-income and black students, though, a significant gap remains between those taking the college prep courses and total proportion of graduates. This follows a national trend school officials call an "equity gap."
About 47 percent of all high school graduates came from low-income households, while just 29 percent of graduates taking advanced placement tests came from low-income families.
Additionally, about 16 percent of all graduating student are black, but they represent just 11 percent of all graduates taking AP exams.
Mary Fergus, a spokeswoman for the state Board of Education, said the agency has seen a similar pattern in other data. "Closing that equity gap is a huge issue," Fergus said. Fergus said the department created the Center for School Improvement to support lower-performing schools, which sometimes may include more black students.
For the state's Latino students, however, AP exam participation is trending up. Last year, the percentage of Latino graduates taking AP exams surpassed the total percentage of Latino students who graduated in 2013.
Koch said this is step forward in closing the equity gap for minority students he says have less access to college.
One district in Illinois with a Latino student population of about 60 percent received the Advanced Placement Program's national award for small-size schools. Leyden High School District in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park was recognized for increasing access to the college prep courses and improving exam performance.
Nick Polyak, the district's superintendent, said the success starts with hiring high-quality teachers, but he also noted a laptop program started in 2012 and removing barriers from students entering AP courses.
"We're thrilled," Polyak said. "This isn't an award just for our AP teachers. It's an award for every teacher of the kids who have taken these courses."
Editor's Note: While the article below is for the performance of high school students in Illinois, it follows a national trend called and "equity gap."
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.
Comments
2014-24 I completely agree
2014-24 I completely agree with you. If all we do is blame society for these statistics and fret on what is or isn't happing then nothing change. Life is the same way, we all grow up in different ways at different speeds, and whatever your skin color is and whatever school you belong too, if you take charge of your own life and seek to improve you will do better. These scores have nothing to do with racism I think it has more to do with repetition and the cycle of "If only" that keeps people down. Until you know who you are you wont be able to succeed in life.
It is a problem in the distribution of money.
I believe this is a problem of poverty. In my country the same thing happen. People who has a lower income tend to do worse in tests and school. This is because the public education does not work very well since cheaper teachers are worse. Public schools spend less money than private schools in teachers, technology, and any other way of support that may help kids to learn. This is an issue that government has to fix from the roots and invest money to hire high quality professor that are going to help poor people to succeed. Also invest to get a comfortable place to work, learn, and distract themself.
This article talked about how hispanic and black people do worse at school, which i do not think is racism. However I believe that there is a big injustice because those ethnic groups matches with people who generally have a lower income. This is going to be an endless problem to goverment untill they make an important change in their public educational sistem giving to the poor people the same chances to succeed than people who attend to private education have.
That is the only way to get a better and more fairly form to distribute money.
Students that come from lower
Students that come from lower income families tend not to go to schools that are given a lot of money for education. Lower income schools also pay teachers less and that can have an effect on the commitment of the teacher. If nothing else education should be equal no matter the income level of the students families. The intelligence of a child is not based on the income of that family. If every child was given the same opportunity to succeed in public school there could be many more kids going to college and getting good jobs to support their future families. Being that there is still racial problems in the United states even the low income black students that are going to good public schools, there is that chance that they are being treated poorly compared to their white counterparts. If children no matter their parents income were treated equal when it came to education we would not have this problem, and it wouldn't be rare to have a high number of minorities succeeding in this country.
Economic and Educational Issues
I believe the this article expressed two important problems that affect United States today. The first problem is the horrible distribution of money that exist today. It is a fact that hispanic people, and black people are most likely to get a lower income. This is expressed in the bad academic results that those ethnic groups get. The second problem is closely related with it but this is more focused on the education that poor people recieve. Public schools have a huge eductional problem. It begins with the low invest that governments have done to improve the quality of it. The technology that public schools have is quite worse than private schools. Also the comfort of public schools is lower than private school, which is very important to distract,or incentive students selves in order to get ready to keep learning. However the most important aspect is the quality of teachers. Public schools do not have enough money to afford professors of exellence, because goverment does not give enough money. The quality of teachers is the key to get better result but that change have not happen yet.
School Performance
I think that your performance in school depends on your priorities and what you've been taught. If you see your family hasn't made any efforts to be successful and they have other things on their minds besides taking care of their families then some kids will feel like that's what they want to do. Other kids will see that it has gotten you nowhere and want to succeed in life therefore making an effort in school so they won't have to struggle in life. Most of the lackness for blacks is because their parents didn't care about life and wasted precious time and money not caring if it would effect their children's lives later on. I am black and I am speaking from very much experience. I have seen and heard it all. I am the only person in my family to reach my SECOND SEMESTER of COLLEGE. It's not always just the parents at fault either, I have made mistakes and not did important things on time and not did important things at all and now I'm suffering. I have learned not to wait on anybody and that you are only as successful as you want to be. I agree with you all to a certain extent.
i agree with your point that,
i agree with your point that, some of the kids who do not do well in schools is because they have been exposed to environments where they are not motivated to study but rather to care for their families and be engaged in much more family oriented businesses. especially in the case of Blacks, where they tend to be in gangs and rahter focus on loyalties rather than their education. this might be a contributing factor rather than race.
I appreciate your point of
I appreciate your point of view. I do think we learn a lot from our families and we tend to take on their points of view until we are able to learn our own. Thanks for sharing your story.
the fact that black kids do
the fact that black kids do not do well in school is not a race related issue as much as it is being motivated or having the right incentives to be able to attract their creativity and ideas.what these students need is the right push towards achieving their dreams and the rest if up to them.
Not a race issue
I think this is not a race issue, but an issue of socioeconomic status. Also, this has nothing to do with teachers. If you compare a student with a lower socioeconomic status to a student with high socioeconomic status you will see similar results. It does not matter their race or ethnic background. Generally, students with higher socioeconomic status perform better on tests than students with low socioeconomic status. A student in with a low socioeconomic status may have grown up receiving little to no parent involvement because their parents are working late nights just to provide. Maybe a student living in an area such as this had to get a job at a young age and could not focus on their studies as much.
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