Even though Chicago has seen a recent push for private education, new assessment data show that local public schools produce higher learning growth in students, particularly in reading.
The Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) exam is given to Chicago Public Schools students twice a year. The second MAP test measures how much each student has improved since taking the first test at the beginning of the year. CPS says the exam is effective in measuring student growth over time.
New results for the 2013-2014 exams show that students attending public schools excelled in reading growth while charter schools were slightly behind national averages.
Critics, like Blaine Elementary School principal, Troy LaRaviere, say the results show that the city’s push for charter schools and school reform is unfounded.
Browse the charts below to see how charter schools and public schools shape up against one another and against the nation.
Students meeting national average growth
The data shows the average percentage of CPS students meeting national average MAP growth.
Most public school students met the national average for reading and outpaced charter students. But in math, charter and public school students had similar growth, with roughly 50% of CPS students meeting national average growth.
National school growth percentile rank
The graph shows how CPS schools’ average growth compares to the national average. The growth is placed on a percentile where the 50th percentile represents the national average.
Public CPS schools exceed the national average growth in reading. Charter schools remain slightly below average in reading and math.
Schools with high growth
The graph shows the percentage of CPS schools with more than 59% of the student body meeting the national average MAP growth.
In this scenario, more public schools have most students meeting national averages in reading than charter schools. But in math, more charter schools have the majority of the student body meeting national averages.
Still many schools have 50/50 results. Click on the button below to add to the data schools with 50-59% of its student body meeting the national average.
In this instance, public schools outpace charter schools in math and reading. Almost all public schools have at least half their student bodies meeting national averages for reading growth.
Source: Chicago Public Schools