Rockford Public Schools sees better graduation, literacy rates in latest state report card

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Rockford Public Schools improved its graduation rate, exceeding a multiyear goal set by the Board of Education, and it made another year of gains in literacy rates.

The district’s graduation rate jumped 3.5 percentage points to 77%, according to new data in the Illinois State Report Card released Thursday morning. That comes as the statewide graduation rate reached its highest level in 15 years of 89%.

The district has long trailed state averages in key metrics on the state report card, and it does so again this year. The upside, school leaders say, is that gains made on graduation rates, literacy standards and number of freshmen on track to graduate all made bigger gains than the statewide average, closing the gap between Rockford and the rest of Illinois.

“What’s exciting is not only are we improving as a community, but we’ve also dramatically out gained the state average,” Superintendent Ehren Jarrett told the Rock River Current. “We are not just riding a wave of statewide improvement. We are really significantly on all three metrics outperforming the state growth.”

This year’s report card also had three of the district’s 44 schools designated as exemplary, meaning they’re in the top 10% of the highest-performing schools in the state. Those were Haskell STEAM Academy, Thurgood Marshall Elementary and Thurgood Marshall middle school.

Haskell’s turnaround is particularly impressive, said Kristina Perry, Rockford Public Schools’ director of accountability.

“Haskell Elementary in just five years went from the bottom 5% in the state of Illinois to the top 10% in the state,” she said. “They’ve done amazing work.”

Jarrett is in his final school year with the district. He’s headed to Hononegah to lead the single-school district as its superintendent next year. In 2023, Jarrett’s contract in Rockford was extended for two years and he was challenged by the board to hit specific benchmarks on student achievement as a condition of his continued employment.

Those benchmarks included a 75% graduation rate, which was exceeded by 2 points, and a 20% rate of students who meet or exceed state proficiency standards for English language arts, often called literacy rates. That too was met.

“I think the foundation is very, very strong as we transition to a new team. There’s plenty of opportunity for improvement,” Jarrett said.

He said the school is positioned to continue to make progress toward the state average.

“I don’t think there’s any reason as a community we have to limit what we believe we can collectively accomplish,” he said. “I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and I expect it to continue when I leave.”

Literacy | 31.6%

A note about the data

Literacy scores look different this year after the Illinois State Board of Education adopted new proficiency benchmarks this summer. The state said it adjusted its benchmarks because its proficiency scores didn’t accurately reflect the success students were demonstrating in the classroom.

Illinois previously had proficiency benchmarks in literacy and math that were more difficult to meet than almost any other state in the nation, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress standard. In short, state education leaders say students who were excelling in the classroom, earning strong grades, passing college-level courses, and getting accepted into college were receiving scores that said they were “not proficient” on the state’s literacy and math assessments.

From a data standpoint, that means this year’s numbers show a far greater percentage of students meeting literacy standards. However, Rockford made improvements even if scored under the old system.

Rockford improves

This year, nearly 32% of Rockford Public Schools’ third through eighth graders met or exceeded state proficiency standards for English language arts, also called Illinois Assessment of Readiness literacy rates.

The rate was 23% last year under the old scoring system. However, an apples to apples comparison would have seen Rockford’s rate rise to 24%, according to a calculation from Perry, the director accountability.

In 2023, about 18% of students met those standards.

“When we started this work we were at 15% (third through eighth grade) in 2021. Now we are at 24%. We had our biggest jump year-over-year last year, which was four points year-over-year,” Jarrett said. “Not only did we maintain that, we gained another point if you go back to the old standard. … I think that’s a big win.”

Graduation rates by year

• 2025: 77%
• 2024: 73.5%
• 2023: 68.9%
• 2022: 65.6%
• 2021: 64.4%
• 2020: 66.9%
• 2019: 66.4%

Rockford’s graduation rate rose from 73.5% to 77% as the statewide rate climbed from 87.7% to 89%, according to the state report card.

Jarrett said the district is seeing the payoff to an increased focus on keeping freshmen on track to graduate. The freshman-on-track rate also improved this year from 74% to 79%. The state average is 89.3%

High schools use analytics to quickly identify when a student is falling off track and build a recovery plan. Case managing the data is important, Jarrett said, “but case managing the students as human beings to make sure they have interventions has been an even more important part of the story.”

He said the district’s practice is to have multi-tiered systems of support in place to help keep students on the path to graduate.

“We’ve invested millions of dollars in all of our high schools in giving the principals flexibility to add positions like parent liaisons, Title I teachers, different folks that have non-traditional roles where they’re classroom teachers but they’re helping to case manage and provide social-emotional and academic support for our students,” he said. “They’ve built very intentional support structures.”

Jarrett said it’s also noteworthy that more than half of students are graduating with additional credentials such as a career certification, dual credits for college, an advanced placement course or seal of biliteracy. Approximately 54% of graduates have one of those credentials, Perry said.

Chronic absenteeism | 42%

Rockford, as well as other districts around the state, has struggled with high rates of students missing school since the pandemic.

The state measures chronic absenteeism through the percentage of students who miss 10% or more school days. The rate this year fell to 42% from 46% a year ago. However, the statewide average is about 25%.

Rockford’s rate is down from its peak of 60.8% in 2021-22. It was 35.4% before the pandemic in 2019.

Perry said the district is seeing far less absenteeism at the elementary level than in years past. However, high schools have not made similar gains.

“It’s not as promising as what we had wanted to see but we have a lot of faith in what we saw at our elementary level,” Perry said. “Some of our schools saw an almost 20-point improvement in chronic absenteeism at the elementary level.”

State report card data shows students in grades 1-6 have absenteeism rates ranging from 32% to 38%. In grades 7-12, that range increases from 43% to nearly 57% at the ninth grade level.

“We are also hoping that the strategy of really developing good attendance behavior and habits at the elementary level will help roll up for our middle school and high school,” Perry said. “You have to remember our middle school and high school students what their experience was during COVID and some of those habits that are really hard to break.”

You can see all the state report card data HERE.

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas