West Cook News

Since 2022, Oak Park and River Forest High School students have served as human research test subjects in a multi-million dollar federally-funded experiment, studying whether eliminating honor classes improves learning for black and Hispanic students.

That’s according to U.S. Department of Education documents reviewed by West Cook News. 

They show Washington, D.C.-based government researchers picked 3,300-student OPRF H.S. as a “Petri dish" to test their hypothesis that merit-based  "tracking" of high school students into honors classes is racist, and the cause of lagging achievement by black and Hispanic students.

The school was run at the time by Joylynn Pruitt Adams, a believer in the hypothesis who served as its superintendent from Dec. 2016-June 2021.

To run the experiment, which ended honors classes at OPRF H.S., records show the U.S. Department of Education paid the Virginia-based "American Institutes For Research In The Behavioral Sciences" $29 million in 2016 to create federally-funded "Regional Education Laboratories" across the Midwest, including one in Oak Park.

The non-profit, known as "AIR," describes its mission on Internal Revenue Service filings as "to generate and use rigorous evidence that contributes to a better, more equitable world."

All told, the federal government gave $232 million to AIR in 2016 to operate various public school student experiments seeking to prove "the effects of systemic racism within education" across the U.S. 

It spent part of the money creating an advocacy group it called the Midwest Achievement Gap Research Alliance, or MAGRA, which promised to fight racism by promoting "the integration of culturally relevant practices" in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota schools.

Since 2019, AIR Analysts paid by the federal government have been studying OPRF students to assess how ending the use of merit-based student assessments, like tests and grades, impacts their learning.

Among AIR's contractual responsibilities: coaching OPRF teachers and administrators on how to design and run the experiment.

 "A few things that I have really enjoyed while working with the Oak Park and River Forest district team on this project include their willingness to grow their own systems thinking, their commitment to examine and discuss their own assumptions and beliefs about the need and purpose of this work, and their dedication to keep student needs and equity at the core of their decisions," said AIR consultant Aaron Butler.

Butler and his team were also charged with selling the parents of high-achieving white and Asian students on their concept that sacrificing their own academics could have cosmic benefits.

"A diverse classroom will lead to thoughtful discussions in which students will learn from their peers,” said a 2022 "infographic" flyer, designed by AIR and distributed to parents ahead of the experiment. “Research has shown that racial diversity leads to a deeper understanding of race and allows for an environment in which students, particularly students of color, feel more comfortable expressing their opinions. The ability to empathize with others is an important quality that will be valuable in all stages of life.”

Early results: OPRF black, Hispanic class failure rate rises

Three years into the OPRF experiment, more black and Hispanic students are failing their classes at the school.

According to Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) data, OPRF's  "freshman on track" metric, which calculates the percentage of freshmen who finish their first high school year having failed two more core courses, has regressed for black and Hispanic students.

In 2024, 25 percent of black OPRF students failed two or more courses, versus 21 percent in 2022.

Hispanic OPRF students saw an even greater academic decline, from eight percent in 2022 to 20 percent in 2024.

In 2024, 100 percent of OPRF Asian students were "on track," and 96 percent of white ones.

OPRF spokesman Karin Sullivan said it is too early to tell if the experiment has led to lower grades and scores. 

“We will need several years of data to fully understand the effects of this particular initiative," she said.

To be sure, the OPRF experiment had been conducted before-- at Evanston Township High School (ETHS), which banned honors classes in its 2012-13 school year.

Nearly fifteen years in, Evanston has seen declining black test scores and a persistent "achievement gap" between black students and their white and Asian classmates.

A 2018 "systemic review of research" by the U.S. Department of Education examined 3,917 studies of school "interventions" aimed at improving black student performance, identifying just 22 that showed "promising evidence" that they worked.

Examples with promise included rewarding good behavior, "implementing a summer reading program with free books," "connecting male black youth with school and community mentors" and "encouraging parents to become involved with their child's education at home."

None of the 22 identified included school bans on honors classes.