District 97 calls its acceleration decision a comprehensive process. It is, in the end, arithmetic: seven measures, two sections, a gate, and a cut score. Here is that arithmetic — transcribed point for point from the district’s published rubric, with nothing added. Move any measure and watch the points land, the gate open or close, and the verdict appear.

All criteria must be considered…; test scores alone do not meet the standards of a determination. — Oak Park Elementary School District 97 published policy. The instrument below consists, in its entirety, of test scores. Drag any measure; hover or tap it to read what each band means.

The instrument drag a bar · tap a name for detail

This is not our rubric. It is theirs.

Every threshold above is transcribed, verbatim, from District 97’s published acceleration rubric for Grades 1–3 (SY26). Don’t take our word for it — read the district’s own document:

▣ The rubric (District Google Doc) →▣ Acceleration policy (op97.org) →
“Acceleration decisions will be based on the district's rubric system.” So says the policy. The rubric is the seven measures above, added up. There is nothing else in it.
The thresholds are described as research-based. Asked three times for the research behind them, the district replied that it “does not have all of the detailed work readily available to provide.” None was produced.
Read the STAR sliders closely. A child at the 84th percentile scores zero; at the 86th, three. The rubric assigns no value to the 85th percentile at all — it lists “<85 and below,” then “86–89,” and simply skips it. We assume this is an oversight. We assume.
The placement test zeroes everything below 70% — a 68% and a 5% score identically. It is the heaviest line in the instrument. The two teacher surveys, meanwhile, never award a zero at all: the floor is one point.
What this is — and isn't

This is the district’s published rubric, reproduced faithfully: the same point bands, the same Section 1 gate (15 of 23), the same 33-of-41 cut score. It is not a simulation and it is not editorial — the math is theirs.

What it can’t show is the evidence behind the cutoffs — why the 85th percentile earns zero and the 86th earns three, or why the placement test jumps five points at a single threshold. The calculator runs the rule. Whether the rule is defensible is the open question.

Now judge a case it rejected

You’ve seen the machine. Here’s the kind of file it processes — the evidence, then the verdict. Make your own call before you scroll.

You Be the Gatekeeper

Here's what lands on the district's desk when a family asks to accelerate. You make the call first — then see what the rubric did. (A composite, built from real District 97 outcomes and scored on the district's published rubric. Identifying details changed.)

Case file · 3rd grade · math acceleration request

  • Top tier on every in-class math unit this year.
  • Report card: “Meets standards” in math, all three trimesters.
  • Teacher comment: “finishes early, asks for harder problems, teaches the kids next to her.”
  • Fall standardized math percentile: 84th.
  • Solved, unprompted, problems two grade levels up — recreated below.
Recreated from the work submitted (typeset, not scanned):
•  3/4 + 2/3  =  17/12  =  1 5/12
•  24 × 17  =  408    (standard algorithm, shown)
•  A recipe for 6 needs 2¼ cups of flour. For 15 people?  →  5⅝ cups

Would you let this student move up a level in math?