Full results will be published next spring.Īll students in grades 3-8 take what’s called the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, or IAR, which covers English language arts and math proficiency. The report card also showed declines in student performance on standardized tests, although those numbers are still preliminary because schools were given the option of administering those tests this fall due to the number of buildings that were still not fully open in the spring. “We suspect that less access to in-person learning contributed to lower engagement among Black and Hispanic students.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) that school districts serving primarily Black and Hispanic students provided the least access to in-person learning last year,” Brenda Dixon, ISBE’s research and evaluation officer, said during a briefing on the report. “We know from national studies from the (U.S. Officials cautioned, however, that the 2021 figures might not be reliable because of the number of students who were engaged in remote learning, where taking accurate attendance counts can be more challenging. The increase in absenteeism was especially notable among English learners, Black and Hispanic students. That’s up from 13.4 percent in 2019, the most recent full pre-pandemic year. More than one in five students, or 22.8 percent, missed 10 percent or more of all school days in the year. The report also shows a disturbing increase in chronic absenteeism since the pandemic began. The biggest enrollment declines were in Pre-K and kindergarten, with pre-K enrollment dropping 17 percent and kindergarten enrollment dropping 8 percent. State officials said recent trends would have predicted a 1.1 percent decline, meaning the additional 2.5 percent can be attributed to the pandemic.

Illinois’ schools also stepped up the rigor of high school course work, ensured students still graduated and earned early college credit along the way.”Īccording to the report, which covers the 2020-2021 academic year, total enrollment in Pre-K-12 schools fell 3.6 percent from the prior year, or by about 70,000 students, to just under 1.89 million. “Students and educators have lost so much and lived and learned through unthinkable obstacles, but loss is not the whole story.

“We have witnessed both tragedy and heroism in our schools over the past year,” State Superintendent of Education Dr.

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