Chicago Catholic school test scores are above national average

Published: 2004-09-03

CHICAGO (CNS) -- Catholic school students in Chicago scored above the national average in nearly all areas in recent standardized tests. "Our students are continuing to perform at a very high level," said school superintendent Nicholas Wolsonovich who released the scores for the 2004 TerraNova II tests at an Aug. 25 press conference at a Chicago Catholic school. The Chicago Archdiocese has 376 Catholic schools and about 110,000 students, which makes it the country's largest nonpublic school system. In language arts, seventh-graders in the Chicago Archdiocese on average outperformed nearly four out of five students nationally. In the core subject areas of reading, language arts and math, third-graders scored better than 65 percent of third-graders in a national sample. Fifth-graders ranked in the 68th percentile and seventh-graders were at the 73rd percentile. Students also scored above the national average in science and social studies but the highest scores were recorded in language arts.

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