Elmhurst D-205 Eyes $47K Math Consultant To Boost Scores

ELMHURST, IL – The Elmhurst School District 205 board is set to vote Tuesday on hiring a $47,000 consultant to help improve students' math achievement in all grades.

In a district memo, Associate Superintendent Scott Grens said students were consistently meeting grade-level expectations in math at higher rates than across the state.

That is true, but practically a given. Wealthier schools nearly always beat state averages by a lot. As of last school year, 14 percent of District 205 students were from low-income families, less than a third of the statewide rate of 47 percent.

Grens continued by saying opportunities exist for the district to continue to strengthen math instruction across all grade levels.

He said the percentage of third to eighth grade students meeting or exceeding expectations on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness has remained at 42 percent to 52 percent in the last five years.

Grens also said 11th graders meeting or exceeding standards in math on the SAT has remained at 53 percent to 70 percent over the last six years. (The low was actually 50 percent last school year.) What Grens did not say was that the percentage has been dropping dramatically.

Under the proposed contract, the consultant, California-based New Teacher Center, would observe math classrooms at all schools, conduct focus groups, review materials and data, and present the next steps for improvement.

From third to sixth grades, the math data from the Illinois Assessment of Readiness shows that the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards has stayed about the same or improved slightly in the last four years.

However, the district has seen considerable drops in seventh and eighth grades, according to the Illinois Report Card.

Here are the percentages of students meeting or exceeding standards on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness in third through eighth grades:

Third grade
2019 60.1%
2022 64.8%

Fourth grade
2019 48.5%
2022 49.9%

Fifth grade
2019 46.3%
2022 45.5%

Sixth grade
2019 40.1%
2022 40.7%

Seventh grade
2019 59.4%
2022 46.0%

Eighth grade
2019 55.2%
2022 45.1%

Source: Illinois Report Card