Left behind

CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS | Five years after the passage of No Child Left Behind, poor and minority students face an even bigger gap

The test score gap between white and minority students in the Chicago public high schools has gotten worse over the last five years, the Chicago Sun-Times has found, inflaming critics who say CPS is shortchanging its neediest kids.

"The most vulnerable kids are being hurt," said Don Moore of the reform group Designs for Change.

Between 2003 and 2007, white students' reading scores went up while black, Hispanic and low-income students' scores went down. Black students' math scores also dropped.

"The students who are least well-prepared will fall further and further behind if there is not a net -- I don't see a net," said state Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago).

But the growing gap also is fueled by an increase over the last five years in the caliber of white students in the Chicago Public Schools, mostly in selective enrollment schools, the data suggests.

That does little to appease students left behind in struggling neighborhood schools.

"Some of the problem comes from the environment -- the gangs and the peer pressure and the misbehaving by people who don't want to learn. But the biggest part of it is the school," said Camelia Clark, a sophomore at Hyde Park Academy, where black students' test scores have dropped dramatically since 2003. "Students can't even get reading and math books. . . . We definitely need a change."

Contributing: Maudlyne Ihejirika