Good Afternoon. 

 

This week’s message reports on an upcoming special State Board meeting to address another district’s voluntary request for creation of a Financial Oversight Panel, on the schedule for legislative hearings on the ISBE FY04 budget and on the recommendations of the Assessment and Accountability Task Force on IMAGE, the IAA and an AYP model. It also gives you advance notice regarding a survey on districts’ finances we will be sending superintendents next week.

 

 

 

Special State Board Meeting on February 6, 2003

 

The Illinois State Board of Education will hold a special meeting via teleconference on Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 10:00 a.m.  The agenda will include discussion of the following two items:

 

• A proposed voluntary financial oversight panel for Cairo School District #1. The Board of Education of Cairo School District #1, at a special meeting held on January 23, 2003, voted unanimously to petition, on a voluntary basis, the Illinois State Board of Education for a Financial Oversight Panel and emergency financial assistance.

 

• Legislative recommendations from the Board Governmental Relations Committee.  Specific recommendations of the committee will be posted to the ISBE website on Monday, February 3.

 

Those wishing to attend may do so at the State Board offices either in Springfield or Chicago.

 

 

Assessment and Accountability Task Force

 

At its last meeting, the Task Force approved several subcommittee recommendations for improvements to the IMAGE assessment.  These recommendations include the following:

 

• Modify the IMAGE assessment and reporting procedures to ensure that by 2006, IMAGE mirrors the ISAT and PSAE grade levels in reading, mathematics and writing and by 2008, in science.
• Add/modify reading, mathematics, writing and science assessments consistent with the adopted schedule for modifications to ISAT.
• Provide item analysis of IMAGE results and distribute to schools at the same time as ISAT and PSAE results.
• Ensure that the achievement categories on IMAGE are equivalent to ISAT/PSAE.
• On a case-by-case basis, allow Illinois students to take IMAGE for up to five years (using language consistent with NCLB).
• Develop a grade 2 IMAGE assessment as an option for school districts.
• Ensure that the reporting system is understandable to parents of English language learners (ELL).

 

Responding to the uniqueness of the ELL subgroup, the Task Force also adopted a proposed “hybrid value-added/absolute AYP model.”  This model will look at two measures to determine whether a school/district is making adequate progress for this subgroup.

1. Did absolute percentage of ELL students meet Standards and equal or exceed the statewide goal?
2. Do average ELL learning gains achieved by the school/district ELL students meet targeted gains?

The absolute component (#1) will be used to trigger NCLB consequences, such as school choice and supplemental services.  The value-added component (#2) will be used to determine the nature of other NCLB consequences.

 

At this same meeting, the IAA subcommittee reported on its progress in designing long-range improvements to this assessment.  Although no formal recommendations were presented, the group indicated that it is leaning toward the use of an “events-based” assessment model rather than the current year-long record of student information.  The “events-based” model, which is in use in several other states, would increase the comparability of IAA to the other one-time state assessments (ISAT, PSAE and IMAGE) and reduce the record-keeping burden.  The subcommittee also reported that the portfolio concept remains popular, especially with parents, and that it could be used with the “events-based” assessment model. 

 

Reminder:  The next full Task Force meeting will be Monday, March 10, 2003, in Springfield.

 

Legislative Hearings on ISBE FY04 Budget

 

The House Committee on Appropriations for Elementary & Secondary Education will hold a series of hearings related to ISBE’s proposed FY04 budget. All hearings will begin at 2:00 p.m. in Room 118 of the Capitol Building unless notice of other arrangements is given. The committee has set dates for five hearings:

 

February 4, 2002:        Presentation from ISBE on the Board’s proposed budget for FY04 and “State of Education” address focusing on the fiscal state of affairs for Illinois K–12 public education.

 

February 18, 2003       ISBE presentation on the school aid formula and poverty grants. Status update on Hold Harmless and the foundation level.

 

February 25, 2003       ISBE presentation on categorical funding (both mandatory and discretionary).

 

March 4, 2003              ISBE presentation on federal funding and retirement funds.

 

March 11, 2003            Relevant interest groups invited to testify.

 

 

Survey for Superintendents

 

Next week by e-mail, we will send to superintendents a survey we hope you will all take the time to complete and return through the ROE. It will ask you to describe the effects of reduced funding/increased costs on the education services offered by districts.  Having this kind of information will help us all as we begin the budget process in earnest.

 

Robert Schiller

State Superintendent

  of Education

statesup@isbe.net