20 years of school reform yields widening achievement gaps, no reading gains | WBEZ

20 years of school reform yields widening achievement gaps, no reading gains | WBEZ:

20 years of school reform yields widening achievement gaps, no reading gains

University of Chicago findings challenge common assumptions about test score gains in Chicago

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BY LINDA LUTTON | SEP. 29, 2011

A parent purchased the chairs and desks in Alcott's first grade classroom.

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If you look at a graph of test scores for Chicago elementary schools, you see a line that goes up and up over the years. Reading scores are soaring, math scores too.

Forget that, says researcher Elaine Allensworth.

ALLENSWORTH: In the elementary schools, reading scores have really been flat for the last 20 years.

That statement right there turns on its head everything we’ve been told about Chicago’s test scores.

Allensworth and her colleagues at the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research have done something no one else has. The highly respected group released a dramatic study Friday linking the major standardized tests