The Center for American Progress ranked the district as one of the lowest in the nation when it comes to education dollars "bang for the buck."

The district spends more than 11-thousand dollars per student, yet when the study looked at their test scores in 2011, they remained low.   But Superintendent Rick Molitor says it was the first year of a 3.5 million dollar grant to help them raise those test scores.

"That why I'm frustrated with this type of study.  The staff, the incredible amount of work they do , it makes them feel like they didn't do enough.  When you look at the results we have received, our staff has done an incredible job and we're starting to see the fruits of that labor."

Molitor says they've seen reading scores go from 54 percent a couple years ago to 81 percent last year.  And math scores from 22 percent to 74 percent.

He believes they will continue to see improvement in their test scores because of the investment in teacher development thanks to the grant.