Chicago+District+Description

** District Description: SD 229 **

 * Roswell B. Elementary School, North Lawndale, Chicago Lawndale Community Academy, Lawndale, Chicago **

School district 229 in Chicago covers a large area of the city which includes communities such as Lawndale, North Lawndale, Garfield, and Elmwood Park. This school district is  very large district  with over 600 sc hools in its limits and over 400,000 students enrolled in all of the schools. The school system in Chicago is divided by elementary schools that hold grades K-8, high schools which are 9-12, and various amounts magnet and specialty schools.
 * Background **

This area of Chicago is filled with low income minority families whose children go to school in places that do not meet the proper standards. The city of Chicago SD 229 is quite impoverished with 86% of its resident of low income status.The majority of children that attend the schools in this district are from a racial background of either African American, or Hispanic. This is very different from the state of Illinois, which has an average of 52% of students in their public school system classified as white.
 * Demographic **

The percentage of teachers in the district with emergency certifications in 2011 was 1.3% which higher than the states 0.6%. Then there is the percentage of "Not Highly Qualified" teachers in the district which again is much higher than that of the state  when you are comparing 5.2% in the district to 0.8% in the state respectively.  Not only some of the teachers unqualified but they are teaching bigger classes on average than the rest of the state is. The  student to teacher ratio of 1 to 23 is also high compared to the state's ratio of 1 to 18.  Not only is the performance of teachers in the district low, but the same can be said of the students.

In this district the graduation percentage is much lower than that of the state and the percentage of students that drop out is much higher. In this district 78.3% of the student in high school graduate with is 10% lower than that of the state. The percentage of students that drop out of school before graduation is 5.5% which is higher than the state 2.7%. This pattern is not only true of those in high school but students in all areas of the district. The percentage of chronic absenteeism is 7.4% which is again, much higher than the states percentage of 2.7%. With teachers that are unqualified and high percentage of students not graduating, this district is not preforming well.

The money spent on the district is surprisingly high in both the money spent on students and teachers. The average student expenditure is $21,924 which is much higher than the states which is only $18,310 per student. The average teacher salary in this district is $71,326 with an average experience 13.7 years. This again is much higher, in both cases, than that of the state. The average teacher salary for the state of Illinois is $64,978 and the average years of experience is 13.2 years. This difference in money spent in the district as compared to the state does not yield the same when it comes to test performance however.
 * Expenditure/Funding **

All of these factors contribute to the students poor performance on the ISAT, which is the standardized test for the state of Illinois. Overall the district shows a lean in better performance on the math part of the test compared to the reading. But, overall the percentage of students who score at or above the accepted standard on the test is much lower than that of the state. On the reading portion of the test, the biggest achievement gap in 2011 is in fourth grade with a gap of 18% between the students in the district and the students in the state that score at or above the standard for the state. And the biggest achievement gap in the math scores on the ISAT were also in fourth grade with a gap of 16% between the state and the district.
 * Performance **

This school district is listed as a district that is "AWS" in the state of Illinois, which means that it is on "Academic Warning Status". The school district has been on an improvement plan for the last eight years. It did not meet the AYP standard for the year of 2011, and is a district specified for improvement by the No Child Left Behind Act. The district has been a part of the federal improvement status, and in corrective action for five years. This lack of accountability as far as the AYP standards is caused both by the students performance on the ISAT and the high drop out rate, as well as low graduation rate.
 * Accountability **

Overall, this district is doing poorly when compared with averages and standards set by the state. With many students not graduating and not showing up to school, and with teachers whose qualifications are below standard, this poor rating is not a surprise. Since the district has been on an improvement plan put forth by the federal government and by the state, they seemed to have made no real progress in the performance of the school or the qualifications of the teachers they hire.
 * Conclusion **