<http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-main07.html> Poorest kids often wind up with the weakest teachers September 7, 2001 BY KATE N. GROSSMAN, BECKY BEAUPRE AND ROSALIND ROSSI STAFF REPORTERS Cicero mom Kathie Garza knows anyone can stumble on a standardized test. But she bristled when told the state's neediest children, many of them in her town, are far more likely than kids in upper-income schools to be taught by teachers who failed competence tests. "There are explanations," she said. "But why did they all end up here?" Children in the highest-poverty, highest-minority and lowest-achieving schools are roughly five times more likely to be taught by teachers who failed at least one teacher certification test than children in the lowest-poverty, lowest-minority, highest-achieving schools, the Chicago Sun-Times has found. "It does give you pause," Garza said. "If they can't learn, how can they teach?" Nationwide, studies show, the most disadvantaged children are the ones most likely to be taught by the newest, least-qualified and lowest-scoring teachers. "The dirty little secret is there are large numbers of unqualified individuals teaching, and they are disproportionately assigned to teach children of color and children from impoverished backgrounds," said Arthur Wise, president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. "It's a secret of major consequence." Now, a Sun-Times analysis of teacher-test flunkers has detected a similar pattern in Illinois. It is believed to be the first study nationwide to document how often some teachers struggle to pass their certification exams, which include an eighth- or ninth-grade level Basic Skills test. The state's worst teacher flunker, for example, failed 24 of 25 teacher tests. That person was teaching last year at a Chicago public school where the vast majority of the kids are poor. Parents don't know who those teachers are, and neither do their principals. Those are the rules in Illinois, where data on flunkers are not available even to the people who hire teachers. The Sun-Times found that in five Illinois school districts--Cicero, Chicago, south suburban Harvey and Ford Heights and Downstate East St. Louis--almost 20 percent or more of teachers tested since 1988 failed at least one test of teacher competence. Statewide, the average is less than 8 percent. And in a dozen Chicago public schools, at least 40 percent of tested teachers have flunked one of these exams. At one school, Lloyd Elementary, more than half the teachers tested flunked at least once. The conclusions are based on a Sun-Times analysis of nearly 166,000 tests taken by more than 67,000 teachers, none identified by name under an agreement with state officials. This group, employed full time last fall, represents more than half of the state's public school teachers and covers every teacher tested since the introduction of the certification exams in 1988. The findings come as researchers argue that even a small boost in teacher test scores could help bridge the achievement gap that often separates poor, minority students from others. "To have [less-qualified teachers] in schools with needy kids just perpetuates one of the major problems in education, namely that we keep giving inferior education to poor kids," said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and assistant secretary in the U.S. Education Department under President Ronald Reagan. In Illinois, educators are responding with outrage. "This data is a clarion call for immediate action," said Deborah Lynch, the new president of the Chicago Teachers Union. "Teaching is rocket science, and we need infinitely skilled teachers, particularly in our most needy areas." Bored and underwhelmed Barbara Antunez says she knows what it feels like to be cheated. At 18, Antunez won admission to the University of Illinois at Chicago out of Pilsen's Juarez High, a school where 21 of the 66 teachers tested last year failed one or more competence exams. But Antunez, now 26, was afraid to go. "I didn't really have a lot of self-confidence," says Antunez, now a senior in the honors college at UIC. "I didn't think I was that well prepared." Antunez can recall a few stand-out teachers, but mostly she remembers being bored and underwhelmed in her honors courses at Juarez. In one English class, most 50-minute sessions were spent writing one-paragraph essays, she says. Her only grade was a simple check mark. When she came upon a good teacher, such as another English instructor who taught her about topic sentences and thesis statements, Antunez felt challenged and inspired. "[But] even a [good] year isn't enough to compensate for the poor years of teaching," says Antunez, who is studying to become an elementary teacher. It wasn't until Antunez, who missed time in high school while having two children, arrived at Malcolm X College where the real learning began, she says. "They expect the worst out of us, and that's what they get," Antunez says. "In a way, we're cheating America's children; our standards are so low for minority students." Does it matter? A passing grade on a competence test doesn't make a great teacher. "I have brilliant teachers who can pass a test but can't manage a classroom," said Lela Bridges, superintendent of Harvey District 152, where nearly 20 percent of tested teachers flunked at least one test. "I would take a person who can manage a classroom brilliantly over someone who can pass a test on the first try." Still, the tests tell authorities something about what teachers know. In addition to the Basic Skills test, teachers must pass one of 53 subject tests, in chemistry or math, for instance, to become fully certified. In schools in Chicago, Cicero and beyond, many teachers are not meeting the standards. And some are missing it by a long shot. In Chicago, eight of the 10 high schools with the highest teacher flunk rates last year were on academic probation. And of the 74 teachers, counselors and administrators statewide who each flunked 10 or more tests, 63 teach in Chicago. A handful of the most severe flunkers also can be found in Elgin and Aurora. Lloyd Elementary, a predominantly Hispanic school on the Northwest Side, for example, has three of the state's biggest flunkers. One of those teachers tried the Basic Skills test 12 times before finally passing it. And across the region, educators teach subjects even though they haven't passed tests in their assigned fields or grade levels, usually with some kind of waiver. At one Chicago high school, a special education teacher has flunked two kinds of special education tests six times, including a test covering a disability he or she deals with at the school. And at least two teachers at low-performing Chicago high schools are teaching English despite failing to master the English exam after four tries. In Cicero, a lower income, predominantly Hispanic school district, about two-thirds of the flunkers were bilingual teachers, including 12 who failed the Basic Skills test three or more times. Amazing, but not surprising In Lawndale, Englewood and Little Village, ACORN, a community group, is trying to document the number of inexperienced teachers, and of those teaching outside their field of expertise. "These are neighborhoods where test scores tend to be very low," said Madeline Talbott, lead organizer for Illinois ACORN. "Unless you believe you can't teach poor kids, you've got to believe there is a problem with teacher quality." A growing body of research supports her suspicions. In a report published last year, Kati Haycock, director of The Education Trust, argued that much "of the underachievement that we have historically blamed on poverty or family circumstances is instead attributable to what we have done: systematically assigned these children disproportionately large numbers of our weakest teachers." Students in high-poverty, high-minority American high schools, for example, were more than twice as likely as students in low-poverty, low-minority schools to be taught by teachers lacking certification in their fields, according to 1993-1994 data analyzed by Richard Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania. In Texas, two researchers also reported that black and Latino children were far more likely to be taught by teachers who scored poorly on the state's basic literacy exam. When researchers controlled for poverty and race, their findings indicated that the divide that often separates poor, minority students from others can be diminished. "If teachers with stronger skills were better represented in districts serving disadvantaged youths, the evidence I'm aware of indicates that learning outcomes would improve," said Ronald Ferguson, a Harvard economist who has done several studies in this area. Most experts agree the neediest would be better off if the clustering came to an end. "It's alarming. It's amazing," said Patte Barth, a senior associate with The Education Trust. "But at the same time, when you look at where teachers are ending up, it's unfortunately not surprising. "Right there it explains much of the struggle that urban students have in achieving--they don't have teachers who know their subjects." Left behind In 1999, Jose Balesteros managed to graduate from Little Village's Farragut High School. But the soft-spoken 20-year-old said he was not equipped to move on. "I still have trouble reading a book," he admitted in labored English. Balesteros emigrated from Mexico at age 11. After taking classes in English in grammar school, he went to Farragut, where 16 percent of the 52 tested teachers last year failed one or more competence tests. At Farragut, he took about 75 percent of his classes in English, with the rest in Spanish. The Spanish-language classes were generally good, some even excellent, Balesteros says. But his classes in English, taught mostly by Hispanic teachers, were another story. Balesteros said he had trouble understanding his teachers' accents and saw some making repeated spelling and grammatical errors. "They didn't teach me anything,'' said Balesteros, who works as an administrative assistant at the 18th Street Development Corp. "They were just like, 'Have a book, read it.'" In ninth grade, Balesteros said he had one strong English-as-a-second-language teacher who helped him improve his pronunciation and English skills. But it was mostly downhill from there. Balesteros knows he could have tried harder, but he still thinks life could have turned out differently. "I feel I could be a better person if I had teachers that could really teach me," he said. Farragut Principal Edward Guerra said "none of my teachers are weak in skills or accents." He said many of his bilingual students do very well, including one who was at the top of his class in 1999. In the last five years, the number of students going to college from the predominantly Hispanic school jumped from 20 percent to about 85 percent, he said. Though Balesteros had no idea if his teachers ever flunked their competence tests, such teachers are more likely to teach bilingual education, the Sun-Times found. Though some schools with large bilingual programs have few or no teachers who failed a teacher test, such as Chavez Elementary in Chicago, bilingual teachers statewide are nearly seven times more likely than others to fail the Basic Skills exam. At a poor, mostly Hispanic elementary school in Elgin District 46, for example, 11 of the 16 teachers tested, almost all bilingual teachers, failed one or more tests, with each averaging almost six flunks. One tried the Basic Skills test 10 times and the elementary exam 11 times without passing. Last year, the teacher was working on an expired teaching certificate, state records show. Because of a shortage, many bilingual teachers work on a temporary certificate that gives them up to eight years to pass their tests, though educators say some don't even try. To get the waiver, would-be teachers must pass a written and oral basic skills test in their non-native language and have at least a bachelor's degree. There is no test to measure their other language and content area knowledge. In Illinois, nearly 3,330 people have these certificates. About 1,500 are in Chicago. Some are recruited from abroad and put through rigorous screening. In Chicago, teachers from Spain and Mexico must pass the Basic Skills test before they are hired. But most of these teachers were educated in the United States, state officials say. Many are short on education coursework and some even have problems with skills in their native language, said Clyde Senters, an assistant superintendent in Cicero. State officials say teachers educated abroad probably struggle the most on tests. Armando Almendarez, who has run the bilingual programs in Chicago since 1997, said he is troubled by any teacher who fails a competence test multiple times. "That absolutely would be of concern," Almendarez said. "Any teacher in Chicago Public Schools should be able to have that proficiency of passing a Basic Skills test. That's just a given." But other educators and experts disagree, saying certification tests aren't good measures of what bilingual teachers know. "These teachers are doing a tremendous job," said Miryam Assaf-Keller, principal at Lloyd Elementary, where 19 of the 36 teachers tested failed at least one test, with each one failing an average of 5.2 tests. "I have had very good experiences with [them]--with the time they devote to children and their jobs, grading papers, giving children more time." In teacher interviews, Assaf-Keller weeds out applicants who lack strong English skills. She also said most bilingual teachers work in elementary schools, where their skills are more than adequate. "Without a doubt, they can teach the children written language," Assaf-Keller said. Gary Orfield, a professor of education and social policy at Harvard, agrees. "Standardized tests measure a lot about your social background," Orfield said. This is especially true for people for whom English is a second language, he said. They may have excellent skills in their native language and other subjects, such as math or science, which are not accurately assessed by a test in English. But for people such as Jose Balesteros, these answers aren't good enough. "I feel cheated," Balesteros said. "I've been here nine years, and I still have problems trying to speak English." 'We do the best we can' Bilingual education isn't the only area where teachers stumble repeatedly on competence tests. At a Chicago elementary school, a math teacher took 10 tries before finally passing the Basic Skills exam, which includes elementary-level math. And in Cicero, a social studies teacher failed six out of six attempts at the social studies exam. "It's pathetic and unfortunate," said Nesa Chappelle of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union. "If incompetent teachers, who are not well-prepared, are put into Chicago schools or urban schools, then kids are only going to know what their teachers know." But principals say they sometimes have no other choice. "When we don't have a quality teacher, we do the best we can because a teacher in front of a class is better than no teacher," said John Chana, the assistant principal at Chicago's Crane High School, which had five teachers last year who tried and failed exams in their assigned fields. When no fully qualified applicants turn up, Chana finds someone with a background in the right field and classroom management skills. This is usually a long-term substitute or someone training through an alternative certification program, Chana said. This is legal because the state has granted Chicago several loopholes so it can fill its classrooms, although new Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan says many of the loopholes are being phased out. The city is feeling the brunt of a teacher shortage that is expected to worsen in Illinois at least though 2007. Educators worry that a new, more challenging Basic Skills test this fall will only make it harder to find qualified teachers. "We prefer them passing the test," Chana said, "but if we have a teacher that hasn't passed who is functioning at a superior level, why take a chance on someone else?" Chana, whose school came off academic probation two years ago, says his staff monitors teachers and is confident this approach works. But Barth said leaders must push far beyond that norm. "We need a culture that promotes the idea that the best teachers should be with the neediest students," Barth said. "In business, they always put their best people on the most challenging cases. Schools do the opposite." Leaders in Springfield, in Chicago and elsewhere say they are trying. "There is a tremendous commitment to really turn the tide," Duncan said. The state is tracking the teacher shortage and has taken steps to beef up certification requirements and improve training at Illinois teachers colleges. Meanwhile, Chicago has boosted its recruitment efforts, and Cicero has successfully pushed more bilingual teachers to pass their certification exams. It's clear something has to change. "It's a vicious cycle," the Fordham Foundation's Finn said, "and will remain so unless somebody or something intervenes." Schools a world apart BY KATE N. GROSSMAN STAFF REPORTER At Ray Elementary, a high-achieving, low-poverty school near the University of Chicago, Principal Cydney Fields reviews 30 resumes per opening. If one arrives with grammatical or spelling errors, it is immediately tossed. About 25 miles to the south, in impoverished Ford Heights, Supt. Willie Davis said that for some jobs, no applications come in at all. He said he resorts to hiring substitutes, keeping one or two all year in violation of state law. "Obviously, your choices are limited," Davis said. Neither administrator knows how his or her teacher candidates fared on competence tests, yet Ford Heights and Ray represent opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to pass rates. As of last fall, no teachers at Ray had failed a test. In Ford Heights, five of the 22 teachers tested failed once or more. For Ford Heights, finding qualified teachers may only get tougher. For Ray, the tough times may just be starting. Illinois is at the beginning of a teacher shortage expected to last through at least 2007. The number of baby boomer teachers eligible to retire is expected to soar, while the number of students keeps growing. In 2003, 30,000 teachers and administrators will be eligible to retire, but teacher preparation programs project fewer than 12,500 newly certified educators that year. For now, the poorest, lowest-achieving districts feel the shortage most acutely, particularly in math, science and special education. Chicago, for example, had half of the state's 2,600 vacancies last year. But some believe the shortage will hit the middle class as well. "If we don't make the profession more attractive for talented people to stay in, I think it's inevitable that middle-income districts are going to feel the pinch," said Steve Tozer, chairman of the policy studies department at the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Education. Choice is a luxury It's a good time to be a principal at Hyde Park's Ray Elementary. Like Ray, at least six other Chicago schools had faculties with perfect pass rates last year. This includes some poor elementary schools, such as Casals in West Humboldt Park. Fifteen other Chicago schools employed only one teacher who had failed one test or more. For each opening, Fields carefully chooses whom to interview. "I'm definitely big picture," she said. "If they're strictly giving yes and no answers, they won't last here." Like many principals, Fields said she would like to know an applicant's testing history. "It would definitely not be the whole story, but it would be useful," said Fields, echoing a popular sentiment among administrators in high- and low-performing schools. "I would probably use it as a tool, to narrow things down for me right off the bat." Fields thinks the introduction of a harder Basic Skills test this fall could reduce the numbers of teachers applying for jobs. But she isn't worried. "I'm not interested in that part of the pool anyway," Fields said. That is a luxury many educators live without. "Those people [like Fields] can make the cut a little higher as far as quality is concerned," said Clyde Senters, an assistant superintendent in Cicero. For some openings, such as certain special education jobs, Senters gets no applicants. Each year, Cicero administrators hire about 65 new teachers to work in the high poverty, predominantly Hispanic district. Last year, 20 percent of the 321 teachers tested failed one or more tests. A day before school started in late August, Senters had five bilingual openings and no applicants in sight. Most vacancies were because of late resignations. Over the summer, he filled 10 other bilingual slots from a pool of about 20 applicants. In general education, Cicero had about 80 applicants for 42 positions. Senters also had 15 special education openings he couldn't fill, including social workers, teachers and psychologists. Over the summer, he had almost no applicants who spoke Spanish and were trained in special education. Senters makes do with certification loopholes and equips most special education classrooms with Spanish-speaking assistants. Statewide, almost 2,600 teachers work with special-needs children despite minimal training. These teachers, who are certified to teach general education children, are given a waiver for two years and are supposed to work toward a more permanent special education credential. The state allows this because of a shortage in this area. This reality leaves parents across Illinois demanding more. ''It's the responsibility of the system to train teachers for this,'' parent Juanita Ramos said through a Spanish translator. Her son Joseph has Down syndrome and is a student at Chicago's Foreman High School. Ramos is involved with the Northwest Neighborhood Federation, a community group that works with Northeastern Illinois University to train and recruit teachers. "I prepared myself, I became informed about speech therapy, about occupational therapy . . . but what does the system do?" Ramos asked. "It leaves the schools [on their own] and doesn't train the teachers to teach children with special needs." But, like others in similar straits, Senters said he does the best he can. "There is no substitute for a quality teacher," he said. "If we're going to talk about high standards, then we need to have people that can meet those standards. I would like to be a practitioner of it 100 percent of the time. Will the market let me do that? No." Senters said it's not for lack of effort. "We try to sell the support teachers are provided," said Senters. "What I tell them is that they can really make a difference. Those are the intangibles I have to sell . . . but reality is reality; people have to pay their bills." Worries about discipline and safety often keep applicants from applying to lower income districts, but pay is clearly a major factor. In Cicero, the average elementary teacher salary is $37,131. That compares, for instance, with $43,668 in Lake Bluff Elementary District 65. Some 101 Illinois school districts, including Lake Bluff and Morton Grove District 70, also had no flunkers on staff last fall. Senters said he still puts applicants through a rigorous interview process and does weed people out. Many parents approached randomly also spoke favorably about their children's teachers. Still, Senters admits that the shortage puts kids at risk. "I think it's obvious how it would impact kids," Senters said. "How do we know they have a good command of Spanish or math? I'm not going to deny the fact. I do not feel good about it." The daily challenge Some principals say it doesn't have to be this way. "[Recruiting] is something I've worked extremely hard at," said John Mazurek, who retired this year as principal at Casals after 12 years at the school. His technique was to print brochures, heavily recruit student teachers, work the room at job fairs and, most importantly, make his school a place where teachers say they want to work. "I have a say in the direction of the school--that really attracted me," said Catherine Schroeder, a second grade teacher at Casals, a high-poverty school. Many administrators, such as Supt. Lela Bridges in Harvey, also say they make the most of their limited pool by aggressively hiring teachers committed to working with poor students. They also make support and mentoring teachers a priority. And despite fears that the state's current push for higher teacher standards will exacerbate the shortage, some state officials don't see it that way. "By slicing off the bottom of the pool, I'm not sure you'll be left with empty classrooms," said Mike Long of the Illinois Board of Education, noting that some research suggests standards can be raised without jeopardizing the teacher supply. Long also said state agencies are beginning to craft a comprehensive plan to remedy the teacher shortage. "You can have high standards, and you can provide appropriate supply," Long said. Arne Duncan, Chicago's new schools chief, said Chicago is already showing how to tackle the shortage. In the last four years, the system has nearly doubled the number of new recruits, from 1,700 to 3,000 this year. It also has expanded efforts to draw from more selective colleges and intensified recruitment for troubled schools. "The quantity has doubled and the quality--though it's hard to quantify--is exponentially better," Duncan said. But the daily challenge remains. "I wouldn't be anxious to hire someone who failed it [a test] repeatedly if I had a choice," said Richard Blatnick, principal at Chicago's Yates Elementary, where nine of the 27 teachers tested failed at least one test. Despite problems with teachers in the past, Blatnick said he is pleased with his current faculty and that student test scores have been rising. But the prospect of a deepening shortage shakes Blatnick's confidence. That, combined with the harder Basic Skills test this fall, leaves many principals contemplating a bleak future. Already, administrators hire teachers before they've mastered their tests. In Ford Heights, for example, Davis said he starts the year with four or five substitutes teaching full time. Some have only a college degree and no training in education, while others have finished their education coursework and need only to pass their tests. Davis kept two of these substitutes on for most of last year after failing to find a fully certified replacement. This is illegal. Such substitutes can stay no more than 90 days in a district. Davis said he fired the two subs at the end of the year. The superintendent said this is common in the south suburbs. Senters said he, too, keeps substitutes on for more than 90 days in his Cicero district. Like others, his district does this with a "creative" interpretation of state law, reading it to mean 90 "consecutive" days. So, after each holiday, for instance, they start the clock from zero. Bob Bigham, of the State Board of Education, said the state law says nothing about "consecutive" days. "It's a tough call," Davis said. "You can throw the person out who is doing a good job and bring another sub in and set the kids back. Or you can put the children first and keep building on what they've learned." A bleak future What happened to Eva Lopez shows just how bad the teacher shortage can get. When the 14-year-old Chicagoan was in seventh grade, she spent four months in a classroom with a succession of substitutes after her regular teacher quit in December. The principal at Northwest Middle School in Chicago's Belmont-Cragin neighborhood never found a permanent replacement, though she did find a certified teacher to take the class for the last six weeks. "I was angry because we didn't do anything," said Eva, who graduated from eighth grade in June. "It was a year wasted." Eva, who usually makes straight A's, said almost no meaningful work went on after December. Some substitutes gave them coloring sheets, took attendance, and at times, dozed off, Eva said. Though some middle schoolers switch classrooms, Eva's class spent most of the day with one teacher. "The rest of the kids [in other classes] were learning things during the day, while our class sat there doing nothing," she said. Eva's parents met several times with the principal, Annie Camacho, and they said she tried her best to find a permanent teacher. That year was the school's first and it had opened with less than two months notice, Camacho said. She scrambled to find teachers and then, during the year, she lost 10 of them, including Eva's teacher. Camacho said she is off to a much better start this year, with all of her teacher slots filled. But the shortage has "been a continual hardship," she said. Camacho thinks Eva and her classmates emerged intact from their experience based on their test scores, but she regrets what happened. "How can anything like that--that's disruptive--affect them in a positive light?" Camacho said. Eva isn't nearly as sanguine as her principal. When her class entered eighth grade, Eva said they were far behind. "Some kids did really bad," said Eva, who managed to catch on and was admitted to one of the city's top high schools. "I don't think they got the hang of eighth grade." Shortchanging the neediest students Student income All teachers who took a Basic Skills or subject matter test between July 1988 and April 2001 were divided into five groups, based on the percent of low-income students at the school where they teach. Teachers at the top fifth, where the percent low income was 63 percent or higher, were compared with those in the bottom fifth, where the percent low income was 7.7% or lower. Teachers who worked at the poorest schools were: * Nearly 5 times more likely to have failed at least one test Percent of teachers who failed at least one test: Poorest: 18.2% Richest: 3.8% * More than 12 times more likely to have failed at least one Basic Skills test Poorest: 9.8% Richest: .78% * More than 57 times more likely to have never passed any Basic Skills tests taken Poorest: 4.6% Richest: .08% Student race All teachers who took a Basic Skills or subject matter test between July 1988 and April 2001 were divided into five groups, based on the percent of white students at the school where they teach. Teachers at the top fifth, where the percent white was 98.2% percent or higher, were compared with those in the bottom fifth, where the percent white was 28.1% or lower. Teachers in the schools with the fewest white students were * Five times more likely to have failed at least one test: Most white students: 3.6% Fewest white students: 18% * More than 23 times more likely to have failed five or more tests Most white students: .11% Fewest white students: 2.6% Student achievement All teachers who took a Basic Skills or subject matter test between July 1988 and April 2001 were divided into five groups, based on the test scores of students at the school where they teach. We compared teachers at the state's highest achieving schools with teachers at the state's lowest achieving schools. To do this, math and reading scores from the 2000 Illinois Standards Achievement Tests were analyzed for every third-, fifth-, eighth- and 10th-grader in Illinois public schools. Using a statistical method called standardizing, the Chicago Sun-Times calculated a composite score for each school. Those scores can be compared fairly regardless of how many grades were tested at that school. Teachers at the lowest achieving schools were: * More than 5 times as likely to have failed at least one test Highest scoring students: 3.4% Lowest scoring students: 18.2% * More than 27 times more likely to have never passed an Basic Skills test taken Highest scoring students: .17% Lowest scoring students: 4.7% SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times analysis of Illinois State Board of Education data. Districts with the most flunkers Illinois school districts with at least 20 teachers who have taken at least one test between July 1988 and April 2001. About half the teachers in the state have been tested. Ranked by the percent who failed at least one test. % failed 1 or more Teachers tested Failed 1 or more 1. East St. Louis Dist. 189 24.1% 174 42 2. Ford Hgts. Dist. 169 22.7% 22 5 3. Harvey Dist. 152 22.5% 80 18 4. Cicero Dist. 99 20.2% 321 65 5. Chicago Public Schools 19.1% 13,777 2,637 SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times analysis of Illinois State Board of Education data Back to top Back to Home [News] [Sports] [Business] [Showcase] [Classifieds] [Columnists] [Feedback] [Home] Copyright 2000, Digital Chicago Inc. ---------------------------------------------------- This is the CPS Mathematics Teacher Discussion List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
