How does Proviso compare to other school districts? The numbers

Here's some data comparing Proviso Township High Schools (District 209) to public high school districts serving other parts of suburban Cook County.

The first list ranks districts by the percentage of students who meet or exceed standards on the Prairie State Achievement Exam.

1	New Trier	92
2	Northfield	78.6
3	Lyons	74.3
4	Lemont	73.6
5	Riverside-Brookfield	72.9
6	Oak Park & River Forest	70.2
7	Con HSD 230	69.3
8	Maine	68.5
9	Township HSD 214	68
10	Township HSD 211	66.5
11	Evanston	66.1
12	Elmwood Park	64.2
13	Niles	64
14	Homewood Flossmoor	61.6
15	Oak Lawn	60.6
16	Reavis	57.8
17	Evergreen Park	55.6
18	Bremen	54.1
19	Ridgewood	52.7
20	Leyden	49.7
21	Argo	45.6
22	CHSD 218	42.1
23	Rich	40.1
24	Thornton Fractional	38.2
25	Thornton	33.9
26	Proviso	22.5
27	Bloom	21.6

Proviso and Bloom perform poorly compared to other districts. There's a big gap between #25, Thornton, at 33.9% and #26, Proviso, at 22.5%. And there's a significant gap between #24, Thornton Fractional, at 38.2% and Thornton.

Maybe the reason Proviso scores so low is the high number of low income students. Here's that ranking.

1	New Trier	2
2	Lemont	4
3	Riverside-Brookfield	8
4	Northfield	9
5	Lyons	9
6	Con HSD 230	9
7	Ridgewood	11
8	Homewood Flossmoor	14
9	Township HSD 214	15
10	Reavis	16
11	Oak Park & River Forest	17
12	Leyden	20
13	Township HSD 211	20
14	Maine	21
15	Oak Lawn	21
16	Niles	22
17	Bremen	26
18	Evergreen Park	26
19	Elmwood Park	29
20	CHSD 218	33
21	Proviso	33
22	Evanston	39
23	Thornton Fractional	49
24	Argo	52
25	Rich	59
26	Thornton	63
27	Bloom	72

Proviso has low income students, but other districts have far more low income students. And the districts that have about the same level of "low income students" as Proviso (Elmwood Park, CHSD 218 and Evanston) all perform better on tests. Elmwood Park and Evanston far exceed the state average.

And then there's the issue of spending. Below the districts are ranked by how much they spend per student.

1	Niles	$31,819
2	Evanston	$30,852
3	New Trier	$28,887
4	Northfield	$28,423
5	Oak Park & River Forest	$26,625
6	Maine	$25,815
7	Proviso	$25,360
8	Township HSD 214	$25,257
9	Riverside-Brookfield	$24,624
10	Lemont	$24,449
11	Leyden	$23,671
12	Lyons	$22,889
13	Township HSD 211	$22,315
14	Rich	$21,889
15	Bremen	$21,761
16	Ridgewood	$21,450
17	Bloom	$21,421
18	CHSD 218	$21,317
19	Homewood Flossmoor	$21,100
20	Argo	$20,966
21	Thornton	$20,541
22	Evergreen Park	$20,074
23	Con HSD 230	$19,270
24	Oak Lawn	$18,308
25	Thornton Fractional	$19,011
26	Reavis	$17,965
27	Elmwood Park	$16,962

Proviso may be among the few school districts in the country that is among the top 15 in spending for its state and in the bottom five in test scores.

And remember, the trend over the last ten years is for test scores to be going down in Proviso.

I obtained the data from the Interactive Illinois Report Card provided by Northern Illinois University. Feel free to check the numbers yourself.