Top ACT performance
Top ISAT performance
Highest per-student spending
Venice CUSD 3 | $ 26,660 |
Rondout SD 72 | 23,449 |
Lake Forest CHSD 115 | 23,789 |
Niles Twp CHSD 219 | 21,990 |
Twp HSD 113 | 21,566 |
Evanston Twp HSD 202 | 20,223 |
Butler SD 53 | 18,971 |
Northfield Twp HSD 225 | 19,704 |
St Anne CHSD 302 | 20,068 |
Sunset Ridge SD 29 | 19,315 |
New Trier Twp HSD 203 | 19,415 |
Bannockburn SD 106 | 16,963 |
Deer Park CCSD 82 | 15,511 |
Did you know?
- Illinois has 868 public school districts - more than any state except Texas and California. Illinois, however, has more districts per student than either of those states.
- With about 2.1 million students, Illinois has a school district for every 2,440 students. California has a district for every 6,420 students. Texas has one for every 4,511 students, according to the most recent federal data.
- Illinois teachers had an average of 12.5 years experience in 2009, down from 14.8 years in 2000, according to the state.
- About 15 percent of the state's teachers are minorities, a figure that's held steady for 10 years. There are fewer male teachers, however. Their ranks have diminished from 24.4 percent in 2000 to 22.9 percent in 2009.
- School districts spent an average of $11,197 per student in 2008-2009, but the amount varied dramatically across the state.
- Local property taxes fuel most school budgets. Per-student spending ranged from $5,922 to $26,660 in 2008-2009. The top spending districts were mostly in Cook, Lake and DuPage counties.
- Illinois has nearly 100 fewer school districts than in 1990, when there were 954 districts.
- There are three types of districts in Illinois: elementary, high school and unit, which spans kindergarten through high school. There are 389 unit districts, 378 elementary districts and 101 high school districts.
- After 20 years of growth, Illinois' public school population has dropped slightly to 2,070,125 students in 2008-2009
Illinois performance
The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the largest standardized test in the United States.
It is operated by the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. Department of Education and measures the performance of students in grades four and eight.
Reading | Math | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
% proficient | % advanced | % proficient | % advanced | |
4th grade | 23.7 | 8.6 | 30.9 | 6.7 |
8th grade | 30.4 | 2.3 | 25.9 | 7.2 |
About this site
Each year, the Illinois State Board of Education releases "report cards," or detailed analyses of the performance of public schools and school districts in Illinois, in accordance with state and federal law. The reports are available on a state-funded web site and also as raw data. Except where otherwise noted, data on this site is derived from the raw 2010 report card data.
News application developers Joe Germuska and Christopher Groskopf built this application in consultation with the Chicago Tribune education team: Azam Ahmed, Tara Malone, Tracy Van Moorlehem and Diane Rado.
Spanish language translation by Octavio López.