Around 180 schools across the state are being honored for academic improvement, including a few in the listening area.  The State Board of Education announced Thursday that 177 schools were named to the 2013 Illinois Honor Roll for performance on standardized tests.  The awards are given in three categories.  There are 37 “spotlight schools” for overcoming achievement gaps, including Grand Prairie Elementary School in Centralia. There are another 23 schools that have sustained high performance over multiple years.  The state board says another 125 schools have shown substantial improvement, including Ellis Elementary School in Belleville and Grant Middle School in Fairview Heights.  State board officials say that schools in central and southern Illinois received about half of the awards given.  Schools in the Chicago suburbs got about 15 percent of awards and Chicago schools got 38 percent of awards.