Sunday, Nov. 01, 2009

Waiting for equal education

It's 12.5 miles between O'Fallon and East St. Louis high schools, but the two schools seem worlds apart.

While 71.3 percent of O'Fallon students met or exceeded the standards on the state's Prairie State Achievement Exam, just 8.8 percent of students in East St. Louis did.

Same test, same expectations but divergently different results.

How can that be?

Unfortunately, many extreme differences like that exist in our area. The just released annual public school report cards contain many success stories and signs of progress and improvement -- but too many schools that continue to fail our children.

St. Rose Elementary in Clinton County had 100 percent of its sixth-graders meet or exceed expectations in both reading and math. But at Venice Elementary in Madison County, just 33.3 percent of students met or exceeded expectations in reading and 50 percent did in math.

Sometimes you only have to go a short distance to see such major disparities. At Jackson Elementary School in East St. Louis, 96.4 percent of seventh-graders met or exceeded expectations in reading and 92.9 percent did in math while at nearby Vernice G. Neely School in Alorton, just 36.1 percent of students met or exceeded expectations in reading and 62.2 percent in math.

We need to find ways to make sure all students in our area are getting a good education, not just kids who are blessed to be living at the right address. Educators need to work diligently to find ways to transfer the lessons of the schools that succeed to the ones that don't.

All the schools in the metro-east really are on the same planet. The quality of education inside them needs to reflect that.