Good afternoon.
This week, as last week, budget analysis and discussions
remain the leading concern. The first item in this message summarizes the
results of budget changes made by the House Education Appropriations
Committee.
The State Board met on Monday evening and Tuesday. Much
of the discussion centered on issues of compliance with the provisions of the No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Board members took following
actions:
·
Deferred acceptance on the proposed
“Illinois Criteria for Meeting NCLB Requirements for Highly Qualified Teachers”
– your comments on the criteria should reach me by May 30.
·
Approved a proposal to make
comprehensive changes in the System of Support.
·
Updated the list of providers of
Supplemental Educational Services.
This message also
contains information on the following items:
·
A survey to update teacher
credentials – information needed by June 30.
·
An update on processing
certification and endorsement applicatons.
·
Demographic data for NCLB –
submission deadline, May
30.
·
Reimbursement for services for children with disabilities
for the 2003 summer term – submission deadline, June
20.
·
Update on review and approval of
federal and state entitlement grants
·
USDOE Education News to broadcast
program on students with disabilities – program airs May
20.
·
Illinois Arts Council to celebrate
25th anniversary of Illinois Arts Week – deadline for submitting events, August 11.
House Education
Appropriations Committee Makes Changes to Education
Budget
The House Education Appropriations Committee met
Wednesday and approved amendments that would, among other things, fund the
mandated categoricals at 100 percent and restore partial funding for
Regional Offices of Education and the Truant Alternative program. The full House
will now consider the amendments, which add almost $300 million for K–12
education above the Governor’s proposed level.
In summary, the amendments make the following
changes:
·
Maintain the Governor’s recommended
increase of $250 per pupil in the foundation level;
·
Assume use of the DHS rather than
the U.S. Census to calculate poverty grants (adding about $54
million);
·
By changing the poverty grant,
lower hold harmless by about $12 million;
·
Fund mandated categoricals at 100
percent;
·
Fund Truant Alternative at $12
million instead of $18.6 million;
·
Fund ROEs at $17 million instead of
$22.7 million (School Services &
Salaries)
·
Fund charter schools at $4.2
million instead of $7.4 million; and
·
Fund the
·
Fund new wireless technology grants
at $10 million;
·
Eliminate Teachers’ Academy for
math and science, mentoring and induction, and parental involvement
lines;
·
Transfer the
·
Provide $5.2 million in transition
funding to hold districts harmless.
Action Deferred on
“
At the May meeting of the State Board of Education,
members deferred action on the proposed “Illinois Criteria for Meeting NCLB
Requirements for Highly Qualified Teachers” until the June meeting. The
additional time will give Board members and the public additional time to
consider the proposal and the Board’s Education Policy and Planning Committee
time to discuss the issues formally and prepare a recommendation to the Board.
Send your comments to me (statesup@isbe.net) no later than
The proposal was revised to indicate that both new and
current special education teachers who meet the existing special education
certification requirements will be considered highly qualified. More information
and a link to the proposed criteria are posted at http://www.isbe.net/news/2003/may13-03b.htm.
State Board of
Education Approves Proposal to Begin Comprehensive Changes in System of
Support
A proposal to make comprehensive changes in the state’s
System of Support was accepted by the Board at its May meeting. NCLB
accountability requirements are expected to dramatically increase the numbers of
schools and districts for which the state will be required to provide academic
assistance.
To handle the increased burden on the System of Support,
ISBE staff, in partnership with the Regional Offices of Education and others,
have developed a plan to shift the delivery of services from the current
centralized model, in which ISBE delivers services from the top down, to a
regionalized model. The new approach would rely on Regional Offices of Education
as the primary providers of services except for the approval and program
administration of most of the grants associated with NCLB. More information is
available at http://www.isbe.net/news/2003/may13a-03.htm.
You can access the full proposal at http://www.isbe.net/board/meetings/may03meeting/sosreport.pdf.
State Board Accepts
Proposed Additions to the List of Approved Providers of Supplemental Educational
Services
The State Board of Education accepted additions to the
list of approved providers of Supplemental Educational Services (SES) at its May
meeting. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, schools that
receive federal Title I funding are required to provide supplemental educational
services for students if the school fails to make adequate yearly progress on
the state’s assessment tests for three consecutive years. In such schools,
parents are allowed to pick providers from the list of approved SES providers,
and districts then contract with the approved providers for services to eligible
students.
For additional information, see http://www.isbe.net/news/2003/may13-03.htm.
You can access the list of providers at http://www.isbe.net/nclb/pdfs/sesprovider.pdf.
Survey to Update
Teacher Credentials
Within the next week to ten days, the State Board will
be sending you a survey to update the credentials of
Using the Teacher Service Record and the Teacher
Certification Information System, we have already been able to verify that, for
the current school year, more than 70 percent of teachers of core academic
subjects (as defined by NCLB) meet the proposed
We realize this is a very bad time of year to request
this information, but we believe the results will be beneficial for everyone –
for you in making employment decisions and teaching assignments, for your
teachers in knowing whether they are considered highly qualified, and for all of
us in meeting the NCLB reporting requirements. The survey will not address every
option in the proposed criteria because not all of the implementation details
have been worked out (for example, CPDUs for veteran teachers). In addition, we
know that we will need to do some follow-up, including but not limited to
additional information regarding Type 29 Certificate holders. Nonetheless, we
believe that this survey is a necessary starting point and that it is sufficient
to establish a strong database for determining whether teachers are highly
qualified.
Please keep in mind that teachers whose names are on the
list sent with this survey will not be considered highly qualified for the
designated assignments unless additional qualifying information is provided
through this process.
Processing of
Certification and Endorsement Applications
Spring and summer are always peak times for processing
certification and endorsement applications. However, the challenges inherent in
meeting that increased work load have been substantially increased this year by
staff transfers to other parts of the agency. In addition, the many changes in
the certification system are prompting teachers to ask for additional
credentials, information about acceptable coursework, and other related issues.
Unfortunately, the more phone calls and e-mails we receive from anxious
individuals who want to know the status of their request, the less time our
staff has to actually review transcripts and issue certificates. As a result, we
are falling further behind in our processing time, which is now at about 12
weeks.
We are working on a number of strategies to address
these problems and will provide additional information to you in the future. In
the meantime, we want to let you know, and ask that you tell your teachers, the
following:
·
Any application submitted before
the first week of March is probably still pending. That means that the
information we have received has been put into the system but that it has not
yet been evaluated for certification or endorsement.
·
Teachers should call their local
Regional Office of Education for information before calling the State Board.
ROEs have access to the data system and can tell whether a request is marked as
“pending.” If that is the indication on the computer, there really isn’t
anything to know other than that the request is in line for consideration and
will be reviewed as soon as possible.
·
If a request is truly job critical
– that is, an individual has a potential job offer and must know whether he or
she is qualified for it – the ROE can request that it be made a rush priority.
We are asking everyone to use the “priority request” system responsibly, since
it is not fair to all applicants if a few people abuse the system by claiming a
priority that can’t be justified. Unfortunately, we have had a number of those
pseudo-emergencies.
·
Teachers and others who call the
State Board Certification Services Division should be prepared to clearly and
succinctly explain the nature of their request – for example, are they asking
whether a transcript has been received, whether their request has been
processed, etc. – so that we can triage the calls. The most complicated requests
will go to the transcript evaluators; the rest will be assigned to other staff
as appropriate.
·
We will be reviewing the current
requests to determine whether we have received all information needed for a
decision. The lack of a key document often results in a delay in processing a
request that has finally reached the head of the line and is ready for formal
review. We will therefore be asking individuals whose files have a gap to submit
that as quickly as possible.
If you have suggestions for improving the system, please
send them to me at statesup@isbe.net.
May 30 Deadline for
Demographic Data Required by NCLB Draws
Near
More than 250 districts either did not return the
Demographic Sheets they received from NCS Pearson in April 2003 or returned them
too late to be processed.
By
Districts that did not return their demographic sheets
before the deadline will have zeros on their school and district Verification
Reports. These districts must enter the correct enrollment information on their
Verification Reports and return them to NCS
Pearson by
Districts that submitted their information on time
should verify the enrollment information and return the reports to NCS Pearson.
Accuracy matters. The enrollment data will help determine whether districts and
schools made adequate yearly progress for NCLB.
2003 Summer School Approval and
Reimbursement Processes for Services Provided to Eligible Children with
Disabilities
Reimbursement for services for children
with disabilities for the 2003 summer term must be approved by
Update on Review and
Approval of Federal and State Entitlement
Grants
The State Board of Education is reviewing and approving
grant applications for Title I, II, IV, and V on site at Regional Office of
Education offices. Reading Improvement block grants should be sent to the
May 20 USDOE
Education News TV Broadcast on Students with
Disabilities
The U.S. Department of Education’s May television
broadcast will feature students with disabilities. The targeted audience for the
series is parents, but this one may be of interest to special educators as well.
The hour-long broadcast airs on
25th Anniversary of
The Illinois Arts Council (IAC) is celebrating the
25th Anniversary of Illinois Arts Week
You can access the Illinois Arts Week 2003 promotional
package at the IAC Web site (http://www.state.il.us/agency/iac/).
It includes the Illinois Arts Week proclamation from Governor Rod R.
Blagojevich, ways to celebrate, a list of IAC granting programs to support Arts
Week projects and programs, and an Arts Week calendar-of-events form. The
deadline for submitting events for inclusion in the Arts Week Calendar of Events
is
Join the festivities with hundreds of other schools,
parks, libraries, theaters, museums, galleries, and other community-based
organizations by bringing the arts into focus in your community. For further
information, e-mail the IAC at info@arts.state.il.us or call
312/814-6750.
Robert Schiller
State Superintendent
of
Education
statesup@isbe.net