Quality Education We did a comparative study of the cost effectiveness of Naperville Community School District 203's (NCUSD 203) academic achievement. What we found is pretty amazing; we think it is the untold story about the referendum vote.
When you consider our students’ academic achievement record, the amount NCUSD 203 spends per student is an absolute bargain.
Naperville Community School District 203 deserves a YES vote on February 5th.
By every measure we've seen (some of which are detailed below), there is only one conclusion: NCUSD 203 excels in educating our children—and at a lower cost than any other highly achieving school district. The only schools that do better in the various academic benchmarks are admissions-based Chicago Public Schools college prep academies, schools that spend a boatload more than NCUSD 203.
We stand alone in dollars spent for ACT score achieved.
The statement that 203 overcharges us on our taxes is simply not true.
The common wisdom that we are getting overcharged can attributed to a small group of vocal critics inflamed by studies published in 2005 by the Daily Herald and Naperville Sun. Back then, NCUSD 203 needed to do a better job of communicating and explaining themselves to the public. They have improved and we recognize that of late they are doing a much better job; keep it up. We know and respect Superintendent Alan Leis, Assistant Superintendent of Finance Dave Zager and the school board. They are fine people who are committed to educating our children and who are spending our money wisely.
Daily Herald Finance 101 Study
Our favorite exploration of this issue is the recent extensive Daily Herald study, completed in November 2007. The following information is from Chapter 10. We've attached their spreadsheet and sorted it by rank then color-keyed it so you can more easily identify the elementary schools that feed into a particular high school district. Across the thirty-four Chicagoland high school districts that were compared this is what you will find:
Only two had more than fifty percent of students meeting college readiness benchmarks in all four subjects: Stevenson District 125 and Naperville Unit District 203. Stevenson had a composite score of 53%, at a cost of $134,000 for 11 years of education and NCUSD 203’s composite score was 51% with a cost of $101,000—25% lower than the top school.
Averaging the data for the next ten highest performing districts, we found that NCUSD 203’s costs were 15% lower and their test score 42% higher than the group average. NCUSD 203's costs were also lower than the state average of $105,970.
Only 11 of the combined Elementary/High School Districts had a lower combined cost than NCUSD 203 and their average composite ACT readiness score of 20.5% was 60% lower than Naperville CUSD 203.
QE203.org analysis of the Illinois State Report Cards
We looked at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) data and compared Naperville CUSD 203 to five high performing high school districts and five other comparable community unit school districts, including four that were missing from the Daily Herald study.
We found that they all have essentially the same ACT composite score, but NCUSD 203 has an 8.3 point higher ISBE overall performance score and a per student operating cost that is approximately $3,000 per year, or 23%, less than the average of the five other schools. The details can be seen here.
When we compared NCUSD 203 to five comparable CUSD districts in the surrounding area, we found that NCUSD 203’s ACT composite score and ISAT score were 2 points higher than the average and their overall performance score is 2.8 points higher, all at a cost that is $90.00 per year less than the average of the other five. Full details.
National Report by US News & World Report:
According to US News & World Report, Naperville Central and Naperville North high schools rank in the top three percent of high schools nationwide. The magazine recently published its "Best High Schools" edition, awarding a gold medals to one hundred schools across the country, a silver medal to 405 schools, and a bronze medal to 1086 schools.
NNHS and NCHS earned silver medal rankings and were among the 30 schools out of about 800 high schools (public and private) in Illinois to receive that distinction. School Evaluation Services, a K-12 education data research business, created the rankings. SES analyzed data from 18,790 high schools in forty states for the 2005-06 school year and considered three criteria: whether students performed better than the statistical average for that state, whether the school's least advantaged students performed better than the average for similar students across the state, and where a school ranked on a "college readiness index" based on data from Advanced Placement classes.
All of the gold medal winners in Illinois were admissions based magnet or charter schools, with the exception of Stevenson High in Lincolnshire who, as we saw above, spends 30% more than Naperville CUSD 203.
Chicago Magazine study, October 2007.
Chicago Magazine's study, while not ranking the various high schools, did offer a cost vs. ACT score analysis. If you search through the last column in their results, you will find that out of the 233 high schools, Naperville North came in first in cost effectiveness while Naperville Central came in third for non admissions based schools. Geneva HS came in second, but their ACT and PSAE scores are significantly lower than Naperville CUSD 203.