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Proviso Probe

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

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.

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