Without the IMAGE, Chicago Test Scores Don’t Drop
Education

Without the IMAGE, Chicago Test Scores Don’t Drop

By Mary Ann Zehr — September 15, 2008 1 min read
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Chicago Public Radio reports that scores on standardized tests for elementary school students in Chicago Public Schools rose 1 percent over the last year even though Illinois was forced to stop using its test tailored especially for English-language learners. If ELL scores are taken out of the mix, scores for elementary school students rose 4 percent this year over the previous one.

Last fall, the federal government required Illinois to stop using the Illinois Measure of Annual Growth in English, or IMAGE, which was given to some ELLs, because state officials couldn’t show it was comparable to the regular state tests.

Arne Duncan, the superintendent for Chicago Public Schools, told Chicago Public Radio that ELLs still need a separate test.

Mary Ann Zehr
Mary Ann Zehr was an assistant editor for Education Week. Her beats included English-language learners, bilingual education, immigrants, dropouts, achievement-gap issues, and charter and private schools. She is the author of the blog Learning the Language.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Learning the Language blog.