ILLINOIS — The number of Illinois school districts with a majority of students coming from low-income families has jumped from 13 percent to 43 percent over the past decade, according to a  new report shows.

The finding was released by Advance Illinois, a business-backed education reform group, in its biennial report “Every Student Counts: The State We’re In 2016-2017.”

As poverty levels increase, the report says, low-income Illinois students remain academically behind their wealthier peers in K-12 schooling and are less likely to complete a postsecondary degree.

Twenty percent of low-income students are college-ready based on scores measured on the ACT college-entrance exam. That’s 39 percentage points lower than their wealthier peers, the report found.

In addition, low-income students are 26 percentage points behind wealthier peers in postsecondary enrollment and 9 percentage points behind in postsecondary completion, the report found.