Edison School Posts Substantial Gains on Illinois Exam Wednesday, June 26, 2002 Edison's charter school in Chicago, Illinois, has posted commendable marks on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Iowa Test of Achievement and Proficiency (ITAP), which serve as the states primary tests of academic accountability. The ITBS is administered in the spring to third through eighth grades and the ITAP to ninth and tenth grades. From 2001 to 2002, Chicago International Charter School (CICS) improved its test scores on all subjects and in every grade level tested and consistently out-gained Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The average gains among elementary grades (3-5) from 2001 to 2002 were 15 percentile points for CICS, nine times that of CPS elementary grades. Gains among the middle grades (6-8) were 7.2 percentile points as compared to 4.7 percentiles points for CPS, and gains among high school students in ninth and tenth grades were an average of 7 percentile points, more than twice the 3 percentile point gains of CPS ninth and tenth graders. Overall gains from spring 2001 to spring 2002 were 11 points for CICS versus 3 points for Chicago Public Schools. Overall average gains were 10.4 points in reading and 11.5 points in math from 2001 to 2002. In its first year of testing in Spring 2000, Edison students at CICS began at the 39th percentile on the ITBS while CPS averaged at the 43rd percentile in that same year. In just two years, Edison has surpassed the district and moved its students into the 49th percentile while CPS averages at only the 45th percentile. In the fall of 1999, Edison Schools launched Chicago International Charter School, its first charter school in Chicago. Under the direction of principal Robert Lang, the school now serves approximately 1,250 students in grades K-12. Chosen out of an initial pool of more than eight hundred nominees Chicago-wide, three graduating seniors at CICS were among the fifty select students who have been awarded full four-year college scholarships from the Posse Foundation. These Edison seniors and scholarship winners will be attending DePauw University, Carleton College and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, respectively. We are thrilled with these results. This Chicago school has done an excellent job of raising achievement scores and providing a world-class education for all of its students, said John Chubb, Chief Education Officer. These most recent gains on the ITBS and ITAP demonstrate the level of commitment of teachers, staff and students at all grade levels to improving achievement and proficiency.
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