CME Trust Junior Great Books Project
In 2007, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Trust awarded the Foundation $470,000 to implement three-year Junior Great Books programs in five underserved Chicago Public Schools. The five elementary schools—Charles W. Earle, Francis Scott Key, Mahalia Jackson, Nicholas Copernicus, and William H. Prescott—were selected after completing a competitive and intensive application process. All project schools were on the Chicago Public Schools "failing list," meaning they had not met AYP (although one was removed from the list at the beginning of the 2007 school year).
The project provides schools with student and teacher materials for Great Books Series 3–5, as well as extensive and continuous on-site professional development for project teachers.
The Illinois Standards Achievement Test was administered to students at each participating school. 2007 and 2008 test results for third, fourth, and fifth grade students were used for comparison with the district results at the same grade levels.
For purposes of grade level comparison, 2007 test results for third grade were compared to 2008 results for fourth grade; and, 2007 results for fourth grade were compared to 2008 results for fifth grade.
Major Points–Reading Results:
- Three schools increased the percent of students scoring in either the Meeting/Exceeding or Exceeding Proficiency categories in reading from third-grade 2007 to fourth-grade 2008.
- All schools decreased the percent of students scoring in the Academic Warning category from third-grade 2007 to fourth-grade 2008.
- Three schools increased the percent of students scoring in either the Meeting/Exceeding or Exceeding Proficiency categories from fourth-grade 2007 to fifth-grade 2008.
- Two schools decreased the percent of students scoring in the Academic Warning from
fourth-grade 2007 to fifth-grade 2008.
Major Points–Writing Results
(Based on the Content and Organization components of the Foundation's Writing Rubric.)
- A significant number of students increased their writing scores: fifth-grade by 64%; fourth-grade by 63% and third-grade by 56%.
- One third of the students doubled, tripled, and quadruped their scores in thinking and writing about reading.
- Overall, students demonstrated the ability to write longer and better-organized responses to their reading. They showed beginning growth from merely answering a question by summarizing the plot using small parts of the text to developing a meaningful interpretation of the story using evidence from across the entire text.