The Illinois State Board of Education recently released its 2024 report card for Illinois schools, showing the performance of districts and schools over the past year across the state.
The annual report card, which was published on Wednesday, evaluates schools across the state and "provides a snapshot of academic achievement; student and teacher information; and financial data at the state, district, and school levels."
The 2023-24 report card showed notable growth in multiple areas, with proficiency rates in English/Language Arts, Math and Science all increasing year-over-year, though Math proficiency rates remain low.
Additionally, the percentage of students that "met or exceeded" expectations in ELA and Math increased since the 2022-23 report card.
Four-year high school graduation rates remained steady statewide, with a small increase to 87.7%, up from 87.6% in 2023.
The 2024 report also showed a notable decrease in chronic absenteeism, which was cited as one of the state's most glaring issues in the 2023 report card.
The rate dropped form 28.3% to 26.3% in the 2024 report, well down from the recent high of 29.8% in 2022, but significantly above the rate of 16.8% in 2018, two school years prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Chronic absenteeism is defined as a student who missed 10% or more of the school year, roughly 17 or more days, due to excused or unexcused absences.
Chronic truancy remained steady, increasing to 20% from 19.9% in 2023, remaining below a high of 22.8% recorded in 2021.
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Despite a jump of nearly 3% from the 2022 to 2023 reports in teacher retention, the 2024 report showed some regression in that regard, with retention dropping from 90.2% in 2023 to 89.6% in 2024.
Within the past eight years, teacher retention dropped as low as 85.2% in the 2018 state report card.
More information on the 2023-24 report card, along with each school's individual result, can be found here.
