Low-income and minority students are lagging in their ability to respond to these increased payoffs. African-Americans and Hispanics have made little progress in closing the racial and ethnic gap in college completion, and there is a widening gap in high school graduation rates between Hispanic and other groups. The new federal tax credits for college provides an opportunity to begin to address stagnating college enrollments in Illinois. Improving educational attainment must also include addressing poor performance in high schools, increasingly the weakest link in the educational system. National data show that overall growth in pre-school enrollment has been concentrated among higher educated and more affluent families.
Hispanic children are the least likely to be enrolled.
The benefits of pre-school participation are widely documented. Teachers are being asked to pursue higher standards and provide greater support for and access to post-secondary training for students at a time when the students they serve are increasingly diverse. Incentives for better performance work when teachers and schools have the resources to respond to incentives, substantive knowledge of effective practice, and a vision of change that guides the use of resources. Most of the policy focus in Illinois has been on developing measures of accountability and linking those to curriculum standards. Significantly less attention has been paid to investments in teacher training and programmatic development, particularly at the high school level.