SAT Proficiency Gap Widest in Illinois’ Highest Income Districts

In Illinois secondary school districts with the highest median household incomes, low-income students are over 40% less likely to reach proficiency than all students on the SAT Math section, according to data from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). In secondary school districts with the lowest median household incomes, that gap is only about 6%.

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The data comes from the 2023-2024 school year. The SAT was Illinois’ state-mandated assessment for all high school juniors in 2024. 

 

“Growing up in a degree of privilege, it is possible that some people fall through the cracks,” said Neil Sanderson, a senior at New Trier High School. “It's hard to get to everyone.”

 

New Trier has the highest median income of all Illinois secondary school districts at $211,765. The ISBE data also show a correlation between median household income in a district and students’ average overall achievement on the test, a trend mirrored at New Trier. Out of nearly 95 districts, New Trier has the highest average SAT Reading score and second-highest average SAT Math score. But, low-income students are 30% and 34.3% less proficient than all students respectively on the tests.

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According to the CollegeBoard’s 2024 SAT Suite of Assessments Annual Report for Illinois, only 12% of students with a Median Family Income in the Lowest Quintile (under $55,668) met benchmarks for both sections of the test. In the Highest Quintile (over $117,609), 58% of students met both benchmarks.

 

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Standardized tests have traditionally been used as a measure of college-readiness in applications for post-secondary education. However, more and more colleges and universities have been implementing test-optional or test-blind policies, allowing students to skip submitting the scores entirely. Sanderson wrote an opinion piece for his schools’ newspaper about the importance of standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, Illinois’ test of choice in 2025. In the article, Sanderson argues that while test-optional proponents believe standardized tests are disadvantageous for low-income students, the tests themselves aren’t the problem. Instead, he argues, inequalities start well before testing day.

 

“The tests themselves are actually one of the more fair pieces,” said Sanderson. “To have a truly level playing field, you’d want an equal opportunity to have preparation for these tests.”

 

Educators at Lake Forest Community High School District are trying to level out that playing field by offering a test-prep course during the school day. The district has the second-highest median income at $208,497. At Lake Forest, the SAT Math proficiency gap is a staggering 48.9% difference between low-income students and all students.

 

One of the founders of Lake Forest’s SAT Study Program is Dr. Ryan Abrams, the Instructional Director of MYSS and Science. He says that, although the district does not target low-income students specifically for the class, they use standardized testing data from previous years to locate students most in need of support. Those families are the first to receive information about registering. Although the program was only in its first year in 2024, Abrams said it resulted in noticeable differences in scores, with improvements of over 100 points.

 

“We can confidently say that the students that were enrolled in our program, generally did two times better than they did without,” he said.

 

Low-income students are still more proficient on average when they attend school in high-income districts as compared to low-income districts. However, on top of the larger proficiency gap at high-income districts, Abrams said the experience can also be alienating emotionally.

 

“Students of low income, especially when they're in a school like Lake Forest, where they typically might look different than the majority of the kids… it could be a very, very tough environment to grow up [in],” Abrams said.