ELMHURST, IL – Naperville School District 203 is ahead of Elmhurst on test scores.
This isn’t the type of information that Elmhurst School District 205 shares in public presentations these days. It used to.
Barring something unusual, Elmhurst School District 205’s students will always beat national averages on standardized tests.
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Reams of data from around the country show wealthy districts well exceed their peers nationwide. Elmhurst’s median household income of $143,000 is nearly double the nation’s.
On Tuesday, the school board watched another presentation about local test scores, which administrators compared to national averages.
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“I think I say this every single presentation: It’s just so notable that our median scores are so high above the national average,” board member Kara Caforio said. “I think that sometimes that can get lost.”
Last year, administrators began only comparing local scores to national averages, a benchmark that puts the district in a far better light. Before that, the district compared its performance with demographically similar districts in the Chicago suburbs.
A couple of years ago, board member Jim Collins said residents want to aim high on academic performance. He said some residents “bristle when we talk about how we’re above the national average because I think our community’s expectations are far higher than that.”
At a November 2022 meeting, Caforio herself, then the board president, found comparisons to similar schools valuable.
She noted that scores at the demographically similar Naperville District 203 were above Elmhurst’s.
“They score a lot higher, and they made some changes that maybe would be interesting to look at because I think it’s always good to learn from who is doing better,” Caforio said.
She requested administrators come back with more information about the Naperville district.
It is unknown whether the administration got back to Caforio with that information. But Patch decided to look at Elmhurst’s latest numbers compared to Naperville’s.
Last fall, the state reported that 55 percent of Elmhurst’s juniors met standards in the English language arts part of the SAT, compared with 61 percent in Naperville. In math, Naperville was slightly ahead of Elmhurst – 55 percent to 53 percent.
Naperville is also ahead on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, which is given to third through eighth graders.
In Naperville, 69 percent of students met standards on the reading part of the assessment, above Elmhurst’s 61 percent, according to the Illinois Report Card. In math, 59 percent in Naperville made the mark, compared with 52 percent in Elmhurst.
The low-income rate among students is about the same for the two districts – 17 percent in Naperville and 16 percent in Elmhurst.
Patch left a message for comment with Caforio.
Patch asked the district’s spokeswoman, Tonya Daniels, why the district stopped presenting comparisons to similar districts in its public presentations.
Her emailed reply: “The District continuously monitors both local and national data.”
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