The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) released school-by-school report cards Oct. 30 under a brand-new rating system that replaces the old curve-based rankings with fixed performance benchmarks.

Glen Ellyn School District 41 and Glenbard Township High School District 87 families can now look up each school's designation on the state's report card site. The new system, called Profiles of Performance, sorts every school into one of five categories: exemplary, approaching exemplary, commendable, developing and comprehensive.

The change matters because the old system capped the top rating. Only the top 10% of schools statewide could earn "exemplary" status, and the bottom 5% were labeled "comprehensive," regardless of how close they came to the cutoff. The new framework judges each school against set statewide criteria, Shaw Local reported.

Ratings are based mainly on proficiency, student growth and, for high schools, graduation rate. A school where any student group is rated comprehensive can be rated no higher than commendable, according to Shaw Local.

State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said at a news conference that the system is meant to support improvement rather than sort winners and losers.

Statewide, 28.3% of schools earned exemplary status under the new criteria, according to the Daily Herald. Schools at or above 75% proficiency qualify for that top designation, the Daily Herald reported.

Statewide scores rose

Across Illinois, English language arts proficiency reached a record 55.4%, up from 52.4% in 2025, according to state data reported by Shaw Local. Math proficiency edged up from 38.4% to 39.2%. Science saw the largest jump, climbing from 44.6% to 48.7%.

The four-year high school graduation rate hit a record 89.8%, the third consecutive record. That surpassed the state's own 88.9% target four years ahead of schedule.

Chronic absenteeism dropped for the fourth straight year to 23.5%, though that figure remains six percentage points above pre-pandemic levels, Shaw Local reported.

Third through eighth graders were tested using the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, the standardized test Illinois rolled out in 2019. The state adopted new proficiency benchmarks in 2025, so year-over-year comparisons go back only one year, the Daily Herald reported.

District 41 and District 87 families can search individual school designations and proficiency data on the ISBE's Illinois Report Card website.