EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a series examining how Central Illinois schools did on achievement testing over the past five years. Today's report focuses on the Prairie State Achievement Exam, introduced in 2001 for 11th-graders. Next Sunday's installment studies the Illinois Standards Achievement Test for students in grades 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8.

At Mount Pulaski High School, Illinois Learning Standards are posted in classrooms.

Students must take two years of science and four years of language arts to graduate - requirements the state won't make until the classes of 2011 and 2012 enter high school.

And when it's time for juniors to take the Prairie State Achievement Exam in late April, teachers take them a half-dozen blocks away from the bells and other hallway noise to the American Legion.

"It's quiet, it's air-conditioned and they space you out so you can concentrate," said Kim Oglesby, an 18-year-old senior who took the tests last year.

It all communicates the importance of achievement and testing. It also helped Oglesby's school succeed in ways many others have failed.

Mount Pulaski has ranked among the area's top-performing high schools on the Prairie State exam the past five years, scoring above the state average in all but one year. It was also among only 11 of 40 high schools in the Herald & Review's circulation area to show improvement when the last two years are compared to the previous three.

The newspaper prepared the comparison by calculating new composite results for 2001, 2002 and 2003, based solely on testing for reading, math and science. The Illinois State Board of Education calculated comparable results for 2004 when it dropped writing and social science testing from the Prairie State exam for 2005.

"Each individual class won't score the same, but we continue to reinforce the importance of learning and the test and how they can affect the future," said Principal Russell Galusha, who tried taking students off campus for testing at his previous school near Peoria and brought the practice with him to Mount Pulaski in 2001-02.

The other high schools that improved include Dieterich, Mount Zion, Effingham, Mattoon, Teutopolis, Altamont and Warrensburg-Latham. The other three - Cowden-Herrick, Ramsey and Pana - did not improve enough to make adequate yearly progress in 2005 under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The law required at least 47.5 percent of all students - as well as 47.5 percent of all subgroups such as Caucasian, African-American, low-income and special education students - to meet state learning goals in reading and math.

Other schools failing to make adequate yearly progress last year were Decatur Eisenhower and MacArthur, Lovington, Central A&M, Argenta-Oreana, Shelbyville, Bement, DeLand-Weldon, Brownstown, Okaw Valley, Cerro Gordo, Atwood-Hammond and St. Elmo.

Decatur's high schools, as well as Lovington, have failed to make progress for three years, Okaw Valley for two and Cowden-Herrick in 2003 and 2005.

Failure to make adequate yearly progress for six years calls for sanctions that involve reorganizing or closing the school.

The 29 area high schools that did not improve on the Prairie State exam have, without exception, become worse, while the performance bar continues to rise. The percentage to make adequate yearly progress will remain at 47.5 percent this year but will go to 55 percent next year and 77.5 percent by 2010.

In 2005, not one Central Illinois high school hit the latter mark.

Why is the Prairie State Achievement Exam such a tough nut to crack?

Becky McCabe, division administrator of student assessment for the state board of education, said 11th-graders fare worse than their younger counterparts in elementary and middle school who take the Illinois Standards Achievement Test because the learning standards were not established until 1997.

"High school students have not had instruction all the way through that was aligned to the standards," McCabe said.

Pana Superintendent David Lett said most high schools have some type of tracking system, and the test is aimed at the college-bound track.

"We have a pretty significant number of students who are not college-bound," Lett said, "so we're trying to tweak the curriculum so all students are exposed to more of the concepts on the test."

The state board recognizes this and has begun increasing graduation requirements with a plan of requiring four years of language arts, three years of math and two years of science, social science and writing-intensive courses by the time the Class of 2012 enters high school, three years from now.

Math is causing the most difficulty for area high schools, including Decatur's, and it's also the first target of the graduation requirements increase, with the three years of math required of students starting with this year's freshmen.

Already having made their graduation requirements more rigorous than the state's, Eisenhower and MacArthur high schools are responding to their declining performance in reading, math and science in other ways. They are participating in pilot programs that give students another tool to prepare for the next round of testing this spring.

Because the ACT is part of the Prairie State exam, ACT practice tests on the Internet are a major component. Students can log on from any computer, take a diagnostic test to pinpoint their weaknesses, then answer practice questions to improve their skills. Such programs normally cost $100 or more, but Eisenhower is charging students $10 each, and if the student can't afford that, the school will pay it.

"The ACT online prep gives the student an individualized plan to improve their scores," said Eisenhower Assistant Principal April Hicklin.

In addition, Eisenhower provides three-days-a-week tutoring sessions with certified teachers and is reorganizing into small learning communities, where students will be grouped with the same classmates and teachers throughout their high school years and assigned to one of four career-based academies.

Eisenhower has also become an Accelerated Plus school, using a school reform model to increase teaching effectiveness. Staff members are attending training and professional development regularly, Hicklin said.

MacArthur also is using the online ACT prep program, and students will be pulled from classes for intensive small group study work. There will be pre- and post-tests and reviews and tutoring with teachers who specialize in math, reading, science and English.

The school's Handbook and Rules Committee, composed of students, teachers and administrators, also is recommending that campus be closed to cut down on the high absentee rate after lunch. MacArthur Principal Dean Schultz said it's taking a real toll on student achievement and test performance.

When the scores from this year's Prairie State tests come back in the fall, officials at the two high schools plan to compare notes.

"If theirs works better than ours, we have no problem adopting their program," Hicklin said.

Beginning with the Class of 2002, Decatur students have been required to take four years of language arts, three years of math, three years of social studies and two years of science, plus one year of music, art, foreign language or vocational education. Of the three years of math students take, one could be related to computer technology.

On the other hand, high schools that are improving also expect more of their students than the state requires, either formally through stricter graduation requirements or informally.

Science teacher Carmen Allen said most students at Mount Zion High School take three or four years of science, although the school requires only two and the state requires only one.

"Most of our students are college-bound, and many job opportunities are going to be science-related," Allen said. "The students realize they have to have science to do well."

English teacher Beth Buske said students have a "real enthusiasm" about reading that is nurtured by school librarian Karen Penn and the weekly book club the two women sponsor.

"We have about 20 students on average who sit in a circle and talk about books," Buske said. "The club is student-led and really fun."

Not surprisingly, Mount Zion is among the top area high schools on the Prairie State exam - both in performance and improvement.

Yet Mount Pulaski can claim similar accomplishments with an enrollment that includes a much higher percentage of students living in poverty - 21.8 percent compared to 9.7 percent - which is a barrier to achievement. Larger high schools, such as Decatur's, tend to have more poverty, with MacArthur High School's enrollment at about 40 percent and Eisenhower's at 54.5 percent.

Out of the 10 highest performing high schools in the area on the Prairie State test, only Altamont and Sullivan have higher levels of poverty than Mount Pulaski.

Mount Pulaski High School teachers said the limited number of electives a smaller school can offer, along with supportive parents, keep students focused on the basics.

"We probably push our students a little bit more," said science teacher Mindy Gross. "One-third of the senior class is taking physics, and I think that's outstanding."

Teachers also offer a study club before school on Tuesdays and after school on Thursdays to help students with their school work.

Andy Meister, an 18-year-old senior, said teachers did a good job reviewing the material and preparing him and his classmates the week before testing last year. "They refreshed our memory on stuff we hadn't had for a while," he said.

Denise Farnam, who is in her eighth year teaching math at Mount Pulaski, rarely misses an opportunity to show students how math is used in everyday life and in a variety of careers. The school's second-quarter honor roll, group photos of all her classes and a poster titled "When are we ever going to have to use this?" are among her classroom decorations.

She recently taught her first-year algebra students about probability by having them roll dice, flip nickels, using a spinner from a Twister game and plucking orange and blue marbles from a container.

"It sticks better than when you just tell them how to do it," Farnam said. "At least it was that way for me when I was in school."

Theresa Churchill can be reached at tchurchill@;herald-review.com or 421-7978. Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@;herald-review.com or 421-7982.