Next week education will take center stage as the Senate
will convene a committee of the whole. What we hope will emerge is a forthright
debate about education, including, the real financial needs of our 888 school
districts, as well as the facts about the plan put forth by the Governor’s
office.
Upon closer inspection of the Governor’s plan, it still
falls short of acquiring $1 billion in savings, and does not advance education
in
This week the Legislative Research Unit of the General
Assembly reviewed the constitutionality of the Governor’s proposal and concluded
that the legislation is inconsistent with the expressed intent of the majority
of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention. Meaning that the swapping of
one administration for another could result in a constitutional challenge – one
that would likely involve dollars that could be best spent on education and also
inhibit improvements to our system.
I have attached the LRU review for each of you and ask
that you read through it and ponder how much we would see our schools improve,
if their administration hangs in the balance of the courts. I suspect that none
of us would be any closer to successfully addressing the funding inequity that
belies us today.
I continue to meet with legislators and explain to them
the process of how education money is appropriated by them, distributed through
ISBE and spent at the local level.
In this week’s message we have also included a summary
of pending education legislation and audio links to testimony from Ursula Ahern, a board
member, Community Consolidated School District 46 in Grayslake, as well as the
Governor’s staff testimony to the House Elementary and Secondary Education
Appropriations Committee.
It appears that the Committee was left with more questions than
answers.
http://video.isbe.net/ramgen/newsclips/ahern_022404.rm
http://video.isbe.net/ramgen/newsclips/022404_house_edu_approp.rm
Robert Schiller
State Superintendent
of
Education
Also in today’s
message:
·
Legislative
Update
·
Financial
Profiles
·
·
Futuristic
Presentation
·
RFPs
Released
·
·
Nontraditional
Breakfast Service Options (book)
·
Remembering
Victims of the Holocaust
·
Newsclips
Legislative
Update
There continues to be much discussion and
legislative activity concerning the governance of education in
On March 3, I will be appearing before the
Senate Committee of the Whole hearing to discuss the Governor’s education
proposal. For those interested in
listening to the debate it can be accessed on the General Assembly web site at
http://www.legis.state.il.us/senate/audvid.asp
It will also be a busy week with many
substantive bills that will be discussed at the House Elementary and Secondary
Education Committee hearing also scheduled for March 3. Some of the bills up for
consideration at this hearing are:
The House Elementary and
Secondary Education Appropriations Committee will also be taking
public testimony on the ISBE FY 2005 budget request. For those who are interested in
testifying on the need for more funding for education please feel free to
attend. It is posted for
The ongoing governance and funding debates
have overshadowed several substantive bills that concern education that have
made it out of committee and continue to advance,
including:
HB3977
would require school districts to perform a fingerprint-based criminal
background check on applicants for employment. The fingerprinting method expands the
results of the background check from just
HB4360
proposes to make it unlawful for a child sex offender to loiter, or live within,
1,000 feet of a school building.
Current
HB4944
and SB2732
are both bills that call for the State Board to establish a three-year
technology immersion pilot project that would provide a wireless laptop computer
to each student, teacher, and relevant administrator, in the participating pilot
schools.
HB6813
would allow the parents of special education students who prevail in a due
process hearing to recover attorney fees and expert witness
fees.
SB2115
sets the conditions under which a student may be denied enrollment into school
for one semester for failing to meet minimum academic or attendance standards if
certain conditions are met. It also
requires a district to identify, track, and report on the educational progress
and outcomes of re-enrolled students.
SB2135
would create a K-3 class size reduction grant program for schools that are on
the early academic warning list or academic watch list.
SB2360
proposes a student achievement improvement grant program to provide 2-year
grants to school districts on the academic watch list and other school districts
that have the lowest achieving students.
SB2362
would ensure the recent tax amnesty funds received by many school districts will
not be included in calculation of available local
resources.
SB2769
is designed to ensure that every student takes the Prairie State Achievement
Examination prior to receiving a high school diploma.
SB2864
would require a person having custody or control of a child who is below the
compulsory school age and who is enrolled in kindergarten in a public school to
cause the child to attend.
SB2918
proposes a new graduation incentive program. It increases the compulsory school age
to 17 (with exceptions) and creates incentives for school districts to recover
dropouts. The proposal also
provides possible reimbursement for dropouts who wish to attend vocational
training programs offered through the community college system, or approved
vocational training programs.
SB3091
would allow a joint agreement made up of school districts, or a regional
superintendent of schools on behalf of programs operated by the regional office,
to apply for a waiver or modification of mandates.
SB3109
would permit the State Board to establish, by administrative rule, a system to
ensure the accurate tracking of transfer students. The system will, at a minimum, require
that a student be counted as a dropout in the calculation of a school district’s
annual student dropout rate unless the school district to which the student
transferred sends notification to the school district from which the student
transferred.
The new School District Financial Profile Designations
will be presented to the Illinois State Board of Education at the March Board
meeting. The Designations are based
on the Annual Financial Reports (AFRs) from fiscal year 2003 and the revised
calculations. Please review your
Financial Profile Report through the ISBE Web Application Security System (IWAS)
– District Financial Report System.
You may also enter comments to be publicly included with your 2004 final
report.
Only district
superintendents have access to this report but may grant permission to other
district personnel to review it through the IWAS System. In the Financial Profile Section there
is a link: AFR Profile Score
Report. When you click on the link
it will bring up the Financial Profile Report. The report is two pages long. The first page is the revised 2003 score
(based on the FY02 AFR data) and the second page is the PRELIMINARY 2004 score
(based on the FY03 AFR data).
Based on your
feedback, we have made significant enhancements to the calculation of each
indicator, as described in an earlier email this week. For comparison purposes, we have revised
the 2003 Profile Score and Designation released last March so that both the
previous year and current Profile will be calculated using the exact same
formulas.
Although comments on the
2004 score are optional, this is an opportunity for districts to explain
financial circumstances. The data
verification and comments should be completed through your respective IWAS
account by
If you have any questions, please contact Ken Wargo or
Lou Ferratier of the School Business and Support Services Division at
217/785-8779. If you have any
technical questions about IWAS, you can contact our
Very shortly, district superintendents and principals
will receive Test Security and Confidentiality Agreements that must be signed
for the 2004 state assessments. The
ISAT/IMAGE agreements, which will arrive beginning the week of March 8, must be
signed and returned no later than March 29. PSAE agreements will arrive the week of
April 5 for return by April 26.
Security procedures for the assessments are outlined in the ISAT and
IMAGE coordination manuals and in the test-administration manuals for ISAT,
IMAGE, and Day 2 of the
Futuristic
Presentation
School administrators and local school board members are
invited to attend a special futuristics presentation with science teachers in
their districts on July 13. The
Illinois Science Teachers Association has invited Dr. Dennis Bushnell, Head
Scientist at the
RFPs
Released
Two separate RFPs have been issued under the Stewart B.
McKinney Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program—one for regional
grants and one for a statewide awareness grant. Both RFPs will provide
resources to successful applicants to assure that homeless children and youth
are enrolled immediately in school and receive services for which they are
eligible under federal and state laws. The statewide awareness program
provides homeless-related materials to all school districts and Regional Offices
of Education. It is expected that grants will be funded for a three-year
period, with grants for years 2 and 3 contingent upon a sufficient appropriation
and satisfactory performance of grantees in the preceding grant
period.
Both RFP documents may be downloaded at http://www.isbe.net/grants/html/RFP.htm.
If there are any questions on either RFP please contact
Rich Dehart at rdehart@isbe.net
Navigate Your Day with
School Breakfast,
Celebrate
Think
Nontraditional
Breakfast Service Options
More and more
Days of
Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust
During the week of April 18-25, the
This year’s observance will honor the memory of the Jews
of Hungary, deported sixty years ago in the final stages of World War II, as
well as those courageous individuals, organizations and countries who attempted
to rescue them.
Please visit www.ushmm.org for additional information.
Newsclips