Recent standardized test scores show that Chicago Public Schools students steadily improve in their achievement from third to eighth grade, and finish eighth grade by outperforming other students of the same racial/ethnic background from Illinois in reading, according to a study released by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago.
White CPS students outperformed other white students in the state, as did black and Latino CPS students in seventh and eighth grade on the reading section of the 2006 Illinois Standards Achievement Test, a new test administered in response to the federal No Child Left Behind legislation. Gaps remain, however, between achievement in CPS and the rest of the state because minority students, who make up 90 percent of the CPS enrollment, consistently have lower test scores than white students, who make up 70 percent of the state’s enrollment...