Will County Gazette

More than 6 in 10 Will County public students aren't at grade level based on their performance in the English portion of the 2023-24 SAT.

That's according to an analysis from Will County Gazette of test scores compiled by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE).

ISBE reports that in the 2023-24 school year, 64.2% of Will County's 8,420 public high school students failed the ELA portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and have "minimal (or) incomplete understanding of the knowledge and skills relative to Illinois Learning Standards."

Students can achieve four proficiencies in their subjects: partially met, approaching, meets, and exceeds standards. This report concludes students who partially met or approached the standards have failed in the subject.

Joliet Central High School (88.6%), Crete-Monee High School (86.3%) and Wilmington High School (78.4%) had the highest failure rates in Will County in the 2023-24 school year. Meanwhile, Lincoln-Way East High School (41.6%) and Neuqua Valley High School (32.5%) had the lowest.

Countywide, English test failure rates fell from 64.3% in the 2022-23 school year to 64.2% in the 2023-24 school year.

The failure rate rose in eight Will County high schools in the 2023-24 school year, with the most significant increase happening at Wilmington High School, where the failure rate rose by 11.1%, reaching 78.4% overall.

Data shows that the largest growth in failure rates occurred in Vermilion County, which increased by 20.8% to 89.7%; Clark County, which grew by 22% to 89.3%; Kendall County, which increased by 24.1% to 89.4%; Fayette County, which grew by 24.6% to 91.2%; and Shelby County, which increased by 27.3% to 92.3%.

Statewide, 67.7% of Illinois students failed the 2023-24 school year state English exam, down from 68.4% in the 2022-23 school year.

The SAT test is administered to Illinois high school sophomores "to fulfill the requirement that students take an assessment for college and career readiness in order to receive a regular high school diploma."

High School	Student Count	Failure Rate in 2022-23 School Year	Failure Rate in 2023-24 School Year
Joliet Central High School	770	89%	88.6%
Crete-Monee High School	357	85.4%	86.3%
Wilmington High School	97	67.3%	78.4%
Joliet West High School	865	79%	77%
Bolingbrook High School	866	73.6%	74.6%
Romeoville High School	480	77%	74.2%
Reed-Custer High School	104	72%	74%
Beecher High School	93	63.1%	70.9%
Peotone High School	104	79.1%	70.2%
Plainfield High School	471	71.3%	67.1%
Plainfield East High School	411	70.1%	64%
Lockport Township High School East	841	64.8%	63.1%
Lincoln Way West	499	48%	58.1%
Plainfield North High School	601	55%	55.3%
Lincoln-Way Central High School	465	43.8%	44.1%
Lincoln-Way East High School	668	43.4%	41.6%
Neuqua Valley High School	728	33.1%	32.5%