River Forest District 90 learning rates in poor, white, and male students ranked below the national average, lowest among eight other wealthy suburban Chicago school districts, and lowest among five other US districts most similar to River Forest based on demographic and socioeconomic circumstances.
This, according to an analysis of the Stanford Education Data Archives, Educational Opportunity Project data between 2009-2019. The Project compiles and normalizes school performance data nationally, and the site describes its purpose as “informing education policy and practice”.
Learning rate is a measure of teaching effectiveness and school quality. It uses an average of how much student test scores changed year over year—for better or worse—compared to the national average.
Between 2009-2019 and including grades 3 to 8, the average rate of black student learning was 5.3% higher than the national average, whereas white student learning was equal to the national average (0%). Rates of male student learning were lowest in River Forest at -4.7% below the national average. Poor student learning was -3.2% below the national average.
Naperville district 203 outshined all others with double-digit learning rates in all categories.
River Forest lagged its suburban peers for the period with an overall average learning rate of -2.4% below the national average and a negative trend in test scores. Winnetka district 36, the wealthiest in the group, ranked highest in overall average learning rate, 31.7% higher than the national average. A look outside suburban Chicago increases the clarity of River Forest’s outlier status.
The Stanford system identified five US school districts most similar to River Forest based on demographic and socioeconomic circumstances with the same range of years 2009-2019. Among these five, none had learning rates as low in all race, wealth, and gender categories.
Among overall averages, River Forest ranked highest in average test score with student performance 3.04 grades above the national average. The weight of this higher score coming before 2016, when English language arts performance was almost 4.5 grades above the national average and mathematics 2.75 grades above.
The weight on lower learning rates emerges after 2016 when radical political school officials were busy implementing a new pedagogy, new curricula, and new instructional and grading practices that correspond with sudden declines in student learning.
“Our teachers and the curriculum discriminate against black and brown students” said River Forest resident Ralph Martire in a district 90 meeting with the National Equity Project.
Martire is Executive Dir. of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability that influences state funding and lobbies on behalf of public unions including American Federation of Teachers, Illinois Education Association, and the Illinois Federation of Teachers. He was River Forest District 90 board president in 2016 and created and chaired the “equity committee” which made comprehensive changes to K-8 curriculum, instruction, and grading.
“After reviewing District 90 student achievement data, considering research pertaining to “best practice” in pedagogy, and including essential input from the Inclusiveness Advisory Board, the Equity Committee submits the following recommendations” wrote Martire. The district lost the Illinois State Board of Education “Exemplary” rating by 2019.
Later, Martire joined the Oak Park and River Forest high school board and led “de-tracking” of freshman year, a re-do of the failed social experiment at Evanston’s K-8 district 65 and high school district 202 on Chicago’s North Shore.
OPRF high school officials vowed they would be “racializing everything,” promising this would “equalize” high school education. Greg Johnson, promoted to OPRF superintendent in 2021, wrote that the OPRF community is “tethered to whiteness and white racism” in a book chapter called Anti-racist Leadership in Precarious Sociopolitical Contexts. Affinity groups proliferated under Johnson’s apparent pedagogy of the oppressed. He instituted an online student tattle-tale system and violence is at an all-time high. Johnson is an advisor to feeder districts 90 and Oak Park’s K-8 district 97.
The Illinois State Board of Education considers students poor when satisfying any of the following conditions: eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches, live in substitute care, or whose families receive public aid. According to ISBE, the proportion of poor students in River Forest was 6.9% in 2015 and has gradually declined to 3.4% by 2024. The State trend in decline is similar for the period, 54.2% to 49.8%.
Black students constitute a stable 16.5% of the State’s K-12 student body, while in River Forest the proportion of black students has gradually declined from 6.6% in 2018 to 5.1% in 2024.
Male students constitute a stable 51.4% of the State’s K-12 student body, while in River Forest the proportion of male students has gradually increased from 50.8% in 2018 to 53.7% in 2024.
While most districts are focused on recovering from remote teaching, the Oak Park and River Forest community is still catching onto the meaning of “social justice equity” and so far, it seems anything but just and fair. This analysis focused on what happened after 2016 through 2019; stay tuned as E3 explores a record-setting achievement gap posted in 2024.
District 90 school officials declined the opportunity to comment as of posting.
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