The Catholic New World: Good news greets Catholic school students

About 117,000 Catholic school students and 6,400 teachers returned to classes at the end of August to good news about how well archdiocesan schools prepare students academically.

According to a report released by the Office of Catholic Schools Aug. 27, area Catholic students last year continued to score well above the national average on the Terra Nova II test, a nationally standardized test administered to students in the third, fifth and seventh grades.

The test was given in March to students in the archdiocese’s 242 elementary schools.

Significantly, students from needy inner-city neighborhoods and those throughout the system continued to score better in the upper grades, showing that the longer students spend in Catholic schools, the better they do.

“Learning continues on an upward trend in our schools,” said Superintendent Nicholas C. Wolsonovich. “These latest scores reflect ongoing improvement among our students, who clearly are comprehending and maintaining what they learn in our classrooms.”

Wolsonovich delivered the news at a press event to highlight several positive steps as Catholic school students started the new school year, including more than $36 million school expansion projects completed across the archdiocese and initiatives with five Chicago-area Catholic universities to train new teachers and provide ongoing professional development for current faculty.

He made the announcement at Immaculate Conception School on North Park Avenue, one of three new schools that opened last year. This year, the school has a new addition with four classrooms and office space, as well as a new playground. After opening with preschool and kindergarten last year, it welcomed first graders this year.

Also adding a grade—fourth grade—was Immaculate Conception School on South Exchange, another school starting its second year.

Across the archdiocese, students in the third grade scored better than 67 percent of their peers around the country on reading, language and math tests. Fifth-graders scored better than 70 percent of their peers nationally and seventh-graders scored better than 73 percent of their peers on those core subjects.

Third-graders also outdid 60 percent of their peers around the country in science and 69 percent in social studies. Fifth-graders scored in the 64th percentile in science and 67th in social studies, and seventh-graders at the 64th percentile in science and 73rd in social studies.

Those scores help demonstrate that more time in Catholic school translates to greater academic success for many students. That finding is supported by a four-year study following the same group seventh-graders, which found academic growth in each content area.

“An analysis of test scores for the current seventh-grade students over a four-year period, following the same group of students, supports the finding that the longer a student stays in the archdiocesan system, the greater his or her achievement gains,” Wolsonovich said. “Not only are we keeping pace with the national scores, but in many cases, we are exceeding them.”

The seventh-graders in the study averaged a normal curve equivalent score of 63 in the core subject areas of reading, language and math in March 2003. The same group scored an average normal curve equivalent

of 60 when they were in fifth grade and 58 in third grade.

Students in the 83 inner-city elementary schools supported by the Big Shoulders Fund also continued to outpace their peers, scoring at or above the national average in fifth and seventh grades and near it in third grade, once again showing improvement over time.

Students in Big Shoulder schools were at the 45th percentile in the core subjects in third grade, the 51st percentile in fifth grade and the 55th percentile in seventh grade.

While touting students’ overall test scores, the Office for Catholic Schools does not release scores for each of the 242 elementary schools because test scores are only one tool to learn about a school. Parents who want to learn more are invited to contact or visit the schools they are interested in. That way, they can learn about other aspects of the school besides test scores.

The archdiocese and the state of Illinois require elementary school students to be tested in the third, fifth and seventh grades; some school choose to administer standardized tests in other grades as well. The archdiocese’s 41 high schools administer the ACT to juniors.

Together, the archdiocese’s 283 elementary and high schools form the largest non-public school system and the 11th largest school system of any kind in the United States.

For more information, visit schools.archchicago.org.

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