Why Do Student Scores in Lisle, IL Drop When Kids Get to High School?

There are many factors that affect test scores, and there is much research being done in this area. I can't answer specifically to your school district.

I am currently reading the book "Nurtureshock" (highly recommend!) which is about current research on child/teen development. One stricking chapter talked about how the early start times at high schools (7:30 a.m.) are bringing test scores down. One high school close to me here in Minnesota changed their high school start time to one hour later and saw significant increases in their test scores the first year! According to the research, this cannot be done by forcing your teenager to bed earlier, their body and sleep rythms are just stuck in a later pattern at this age.

I think with Benet there lots of the top kids may be moving to that. Also are there other smaller grade school only districts that feed into the high school? It doesn't make much sense honestly. The other explanation may be that the curriculum in the high school is not matched to the test yet. The kids take the test when they are classified as Juniors, some districts have now made it harder to be a "junior" so that the kids have additional classes before taking the tests. So perhaps the kids are being asked to take the test prior to the main classes they are tested on.

High schools often draw from a larger pool than elementary and middle schools. But I would also really check into this a bit further. It could also be bad teachers. One of the universities here has a math teacher who is just a bad teacher, 75%-90% of her students fail her class. She has tenure and is probably there for life.

There are so many factors that could be in play, especially when you are talking about the same students moving up.

It is not as if they erase the memories of the students when they go to high school. The failure may lie in the grade schools teaching them only enough to score high but not what they need to build on to be successful in high school. The high school may not pick up where it needs to. Jimmy and Judy may have hormone issues and not give a darn about tests anymore.

Are all of the grade school and junior high students going on to the public high school or are they going to private schools like Benet, Marmion or others? I don't know a whole lot about the high school but I do know that it is a smaller high school, thus it has less diverse course offerings particularly in the area of AP courses. Maybe there is somewhat of an exodus to private high schools or other neighborhoods once students near the high school age?

.