The Illinois State Board of Education released its 2012 school report card data last week. It includes information on how students at each school and school district in the state did on standardized tests.
Patch built this database that shows what percent of students met or exceeded state standards on the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT) and the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE). The ISAT is given to students in reading and math in grades three through eight, and in science in grades four and seven. The PSAE is given to 11th graders in reading, math and science.
You can search by your community to see how all the schools near you fared, or by specific district or school by using the drop down menus. The results page also shows ACT scores when applicable, and school enrollment numbers. (Make sure you use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the results to see the full data set.)
Both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times analyze the data to produce lists of the top schools in the Chicago area. The Tribune bases its rankings on the percent of students in each school who met or exceeded state standards while the Sun-Times uses the school's average scores.
For more information about a particular school or district, including how it did compared to state averages and its demographic information, visit the Illinois Interactive Report Card site.