Illinois Redefines School Ratings, Pushing Exemplary Status to 27% of Districts

The Illinois State Board of Education has altered the criteria for its school accountability system, resulting in a 17% jump in the number of public schools designated as Exemplary.

Under the previous framework, federal law required states to maintain accountability systems, but Illinois limited the Exemplary rating to the top 10% of schools. State officials noted that this structure created a lopsided distribution, leaving the majority of schools stuck in the second-highest category, Commendable. The new system evaluates schools against core and elevating indicators rather than ranking them directly against one another. Consequently, 27% of Illinois public schools now hold the highest rating, while Commendable schools account for just over a quarter of the total.

Academic performance metrics show modest gains across the state. Approximately 56% of students are now deemed proficient in English language arts, up from 53% previously. Math proficiency stands at nearly 40%, a slight increase from 38.5%. These figures follow the state board’s unanimous decision in 2025 to lower the cut scores required for proficiency, a move cited as necessary to align standards with student abilities. In Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools district reported that 9% of its schools achieved Exemplary status in 2026, up from 2% in the prior year. However, the district also saw a rise in the number of schools falling into the two lowest categories of the new ranking ladder.

Illinois leaders point to record-high graduation rates as evidence of progress. The state’s four-year graduation rate reached nearly 89%, a marginal increase from the previous year. In Chicago, graduation rates climbed from 82.5% in 2025 to more than 83% in 2026, marking the second consecutive year of growth. Robin Steans, president of the education advocacy group Advance Illinois, described the progress across multiple fronts as good news. The state also reports a teacher retention rate exceeding 90% for the first time in over a decade, with the total number of teachers reaching nearly 144,000.

Attendance patterns continue to improve but have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 10% of school days, declined for the fourth straight year. Outside Chicago, 23% of students were chronically absent. In the Chicago district, the rate dropped by approximately six percentage points since peaking at nearly 45% in 2022. Significant racial disparities persist, with 44% of Black students classified as chronically absent compared to 23% of white students. Megan Hougard, the district’s chief of college and career success, stated that addressing attendance is a shared responsibility across all district departments.

The state’s latest report card data was released this month, providing a comprehensive overview of K-12 performance in Illinois. The data includes results from the Illinois Assessment of Readiness for grades 3 through 8, as well as ACT scores for 11th graders. High school students demonstrated stronger performance in mathematics than in English language arts on the college entrance exam, posting a composite math score of 19.2 compared to 17.9 for ELA. The new accountability framework will continue to guide state-level school designations in the coming academic year.