2025 State Report Card Shows OPRF Continues Progress in Academic Performance

With today’s release of the annual state report cards for public schools, Oak Park and River Forest High School’s summative index score has continued to rise, indicating ongoing progress in academic performance and student success. 

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) gives schools an index score and a summative designation based on eight indicators: graduation rate; chronic absenteeism; freshmen on track; proficiency in math, English, and science; student climate survey participation; and English learner progress to proficiency.

For 2025, OPRF earned  a score of 91.79 out of 100, more than a point higher than the 2024 score of 90.36. The state awards Exemplary status to the top 10% of schools, rather than using a single cut score, so OPRF’s score for 2025 resulted in rating of Commendable, roughly 1.3 points shy of earning Exemplary. 

"The annual report card always provides valuable insight to how our school has performed across several metrics, and this year is no different,” Superintendent Greg Johnson says. “Over the past few years, we've continued to see a steady increase in several areas, and we are pleased to see that trend continue. This is a report our school can be proud of. 

“With that said, there are always areas for us to improve, and we will continue to work purposefully to ensure this district is fulfilling its commitment to every student under our care."   

For OPRF, a key area of focus has been improving the rate of freshmen on track for graduation, which was at 89.8% for 2024. The school has focused on improving its data collection as well as supporting failing students in real time, so they earn passing grades and course credits during the school year, rather than having to repeat classes in the summer.  

That effort seems to be making a difference, with the 2025 report card showing that 94.1% of freshmen are on track. Individual demographic groups had significant gains, with the rates for Hispanic/Latino and Black/African American 9th graders on track rising, respectively, 11.3 and 8.3 points.

In a significant change for this year’s report card, the state has updated the proficiency benchmarks to better reflect student learning and college readiness. When ISBE adopted the SAT as the state’s high school assessment in 2017, it set the benchmarks for proficiency 60 points higher in English language arts and 10 points higher in math than the College Board’s own research-informed national college readiness benchmarks. According to the state, these proficiency rates “did not match how well students were doing in class and on other trusted indicators of student success.”

Following an 18-month process, Illinois has adopted new proficiency benchmarks. As a result, the 2025 proficiency rates set a new baseline for whether or not students have mastered a common standard. Thus, they cannot be compared to prior years.  

However, according to the state, student-growth data “remains comparable and provides the most reliable way to understand how students are progressing compared to their peers.” At the high school level, the student growth percentile has been calculated for the first time for the 2025 report card. This growth data recognizes learning gains for all students, whether or not they achieve proficiency. 

*The state average for student growth is always the 50th percentile. As a school, OPRF students grew faster than 63% and 58% of comparable students in the state on, respectively, English and Math. Here is how the state describes what student growth percentiles mean for schools and groups: 

• 60 and above: excellent
• 54 - 60: above average
• 50 +/- 3: average

Chronic absenteeism unfortunately remains stubbornly high, with a 2025 rate of 19%, down just over a point from 2024. While the majority of comparative districts have similar rates of absenteeism, “that does little to mitigate the fact that one out of five students in our school missed at least 10% of instruction last year, approximately 17 days,” says Dr. Johnson. “This will continue to be an area of focus for us.”

OPRF’s complete 2025 State Report Card is available here.