From: STATESUP
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 4:18 PM
To: STATESUP
Subject: Weekly Message from State Superintendent Robert Schiller
7-16-04
Good afternoon,
Today I am pleased to announce the piloting stage for the state’s new
Student Information System (SIS). ISBE
approved the three-year project this week that will greatly enhance the data
collection process of student information.
At the district level, and for all of us, it should result in more
accurate information being collected for the annual report cards.
ISBE, in conjunction with IBM, will develop and implement the tracking
system that will help districts to provide more accurate student information
for state assessments used for the Report Card.
As some of you may be aware, we have been planning this for several
years. Fortunately, the actual
implementation comes at a time when
The contract with IBM over the next three years will cost $5.7 million
and will be funded equally through state and federal sources.
The SIS system is yet another step to helping all of us move toward
completely electronic and paperless processes. SIS promises to offer several
benefits including:
· Reducing the burden of repeated data collection by schools and
districts;
· Enhancing
the use of state data by schools and districts;
· Improving the accuracy and quality of information
gathered from schools and districts;
· Enable ISBE to respond to the accountability and
reporting requirements of No Child Left Behind (
· Increase
Phase I
of the project (school year 2004 – 2005), will involve two pilot projects with
a consortium of selected districts, vendors that support their local student
information systems, ISBE Student Assessment staff, and ISBE testing
contractors.
One pilot project will focus on:
· Collecting local student identification numbers and
demographic information from pilot districts;
· Assigning
a unique student identifier to each student in each pilot district (this unique
identifier will serve as the link between local student information systems and
the ISBE SIS);
· Assisting pilot districts and their local student
information vendors to ensure that these systems are able to store the unique
state student identifier and to transfer required data to ISBE in specified
data formats;
· Developing a process to allow pilot district
administrators to request a unique state student identifier for students
entering the district during the year (this process will include probabilistic
algorithms to determine whether or not the student already exists in the ISBE
SIS, thereby minimizing the assignment of more than one unique student
identifier to each student).
The second pilot will involve working with selected districts, ISBE
Student Assessment staff, and testing contractors to capture individual student
assessment scores for
Phases II and III will be implemented for the FY06 and FY07 school
years.
I want to thank all of you who have been involved in providing input on
this or who will be involved in helping us pilot the system.
Robert Schiller
State Superintendent
of
Education
Today’s message includes:
· 2004 Assessment Data Corrections
· Small Rural School Achievement (SRSA) Program Funds
· Title Program Performance Reports Deadline Extended
· Posting/Converting Microsoft Excel FY05 Budget Form to
Adobe PDF
· ISBE at 2004 State Fair
· Superintendent’s Conference
· Proposals for “Smaller Learning Communities”
·
· Newsclips
SchoolHouse Update (2004 Assessment Data Corrections)
The first window for verifying 2004 state assessment data on Pearson’s
SchoolHouse system closed on
During the second correction window (July 27 -
· District superintendents will review preliminary
school and district score reports —for ISAT, PSAE, IMAGE, and IAA—and, if
desired, print reports for local use.
· District superintendents will also be able to review
and make any additional corrections to enrollment and student demographic data.
ISBE will again mail correction packets to districts with schools that
participated in the Grade 2 Assessment of Reading and Mathematics.
· Any
requests from schools or districts to rescore tests for individual students
should be made during this period.
· All district superintendents will be required to
re-approve the data whether changes were made or not. This will ensure that the district data (which
comprises school data) has been accurately reported before being calculated for
AYP.
· District superintendents should be sure that they have
submitted correct data at all levels – including the district level – counting all students in subgroups.
When the second window closes on
There will be NO additional opportunities after
Assessment Frameworks Update
The Assessment Frameworks are the blueprints for the state tests that
will be designed and administered beginning in 2006. These frameworks are not intended to be the
curriculum guide for districts but instead provide districts with a set of
guidelines to what, and when, areas of the Illinois State Standards will be assessed.
The Frameworks were posted last fall in order to move the process along
in our test design process. Through this process, however, practitioners have
provided input and guidance on the assessment objectives and focus in these
documents. Therefore, the Student
Assessment Division is in the process of including this input for the
Frameworks in writing, mathematics, and science. We will put these revised documents on the
Web site in the near future for districts use (www.isbe.net/assessment/IAFindex.htm).
We appreciate greatly the input and work that we have received from
practitioners around the state in order to provide frameworks that reflect the
standards. Again, if you have questions,
please contact the Student Assessment Division at 217/782-4823.
Small Rural School Achievement (SRSA) Program Funds
Notification by letter to approximately 240
Title Program Performance Reports Deadline Extended
The deadline for completing the 2002-2003 Title Programs Performance
Report has been extended to July 30. If you received any federal Title funds in
2002-2003, please have appropriate staff go into IWAS and complete the report.
Title funds for 2004-05 may be frozen if the report is not complete. Call
217/524-4832 if there are any questions.
Posting/Converting Microsoft Excel FY05 Budget Form to
Adobe PDF
Since budget time is once again on the minds of school business
administrators, this is a reminder that if your school district has a website,
in accordance with Section 17-1.2 and Section 34-43a of the School Code,
you are required to post your budget on your school district’s website. To assist you in meeting this requirement,
follow the steps below to convert the ISBE 50-36 Budget Form to a .pdf that can
easily be posted to your website. This
form can be located on the ISBE website.
Conversion of the Microsoft Excel format school district or joint
agreement budget to an Adobe .pdf is now an 8 step process. While placing your school district or joint
agreement budget on your website as a .pdf adheres to statute, also note, you
can adhere to Section 17-1.2 and Section 34-43a of the School Code by placing
the Excel version of your budget on your website. There is a free Excel viewer, which would
assist your constituents who do not have Excel.
v Note: Adobe Acrobat .PDF Maker/Writer is required
for converting a Microsoft Excel form to Adobe .pdf. The free Adobe Acrobat Reader is
required for viewing a .pdf.
Conversion of your Microsoft Excel budget to Adobe .pdf format can be
accomplished by following these steps:
1. Open the Excel workbook and select all the
worksheets – accomplished by selecting the first page, holding down the shift
key, and then going to the end of the selection you want and clicking on that
worksheet. The tabs will appear
highlighted.
2. Within
Excel, select “File” and “Print”. Within
the “Print” window, select “Adobe PDFWriter” as the “Printer” and click “OK”.
3. This
will prompt you to save the .pdf to your computer. This is where the process deviates from the
norm. At this first “Save PDF File As”
window, create a new folder, named “budget05” and use file name “1”. Click “save” to
start the process.
4. Your
computer will proceed as normal for a moment, and then return to the window
which prompts you to save the .pdf. At
this second prompt, use the file name “2”, within the “budget05” folder.
5. Again,
your computer will proceed as normal, but will return to the window requesting
a file name. Continue to number your
files in order, “1…2…3…” within the “budget05” folder. You may go as far as 8.
6. Once
you have created all of your .pdfs, you will want to open “1” in your Adobe
PDFWriter software.
7. With
“1” open, select “Document” and “Insert Pages”.
This will open a window which will allow you to navigate to the
“budget05” folder. At this point, chose
“2” and place “2” at the end of “1”.
8. With
“1” and “2” now successfully merged together, go to the end of the now larger
“1” and select “Document” and “Insert Pages” and select “3”. Complete this process until all of the .pdfs have been inserted at the end of “1”. This has now created a .pdf of all the
worksheets of the Excel budget.
Caution: Depending on the printer settings of your
computer, some pages of the Excel budget workbook and subsequent .pdf print on
more than 1 page.
To correct this:
1. In Excel, select ONLY the page which needs to
be re-created.
2. Choose
“File”, “Page Setup” and within “Scaling”, select “fit to 1 page wide
and 1 page tall”. You can then
check to ensure you have successfully reduced the page by choosing “Print
Preview”.
3. At
this point, select “Adobe PDFWriter” and when prompted for a file name, use the
page number you are re-creating, such as “pg30”.
4. Then,
when in Adobe PDFWriter, delete the page that is not printing on one page and
insert the new page – both deleting and inserting functions are found within
the “Document” menu.
If you experience any difficulties and need assistance, contact Sally
Cray, School Business and Support Services at 217/785-8779.
Proposals for “Smaller Learning Communities” Due in
August
from
Chiefline, CCSSO
The Office of Vocational and Adult Education has reopened “The Smaller
Learning Communities” competition for new applications. Applicants that were
not accepted during the spring competition should use the comments provided to
them in order to revise and resubmit their proposals. Over $70 million is
available for grants for the 2004-05 school year.
The Smaller Learning Communities Program is a $142 million competitive
federal grant program to plan, implement, or expand smaller learning
communities in large high schools. Local education agencies (LEAs), on behalf
of one or more large high schools (schools that include grades 11 and 12 and enroll
at least 1,000 students in grades 9 and above) may apply. These funds can be
used for assisting those high schools identified as in need of
improvement.
Proposals are due August 9 and awarded by September. The full notice is
in the July 8 issue of the Federal Register.
For more information, contact Tom Houlihan at tomh@ccsso.org .
ISBE at
ISBE is planning on having a booth at the Illinois State Fair Aug.
13-22. We will be located within
Details on activities will be forthcoming at a later date. For now, please plan to stop by and meet our
staff!
The 18th Annual High Schools That Work Staff
Development Conference was held
The conference provides state, district, school
and teacher leaders with research-based practices for building a school culture
that sets and meets high performance student standards.
Newsclips