I am looking forward to hosting the Annual
Superintendents’ Conference next Tuesday and Wednesday at the Springfield
Hilton. I also look forward to seeing you and your associates at the
conference.
If you have not already made arrangements to attend, I
encourage you to do so. We have put together an exciting program with
well-known speakers and educational workshops. There will be limited
on-site registration available at the conference beginning September 20 from
For additional details, please refer to the conference
program online at http://www.isbe.net/pdf/conf_program_9-04.pdf.
Robert Schiller
State Superintendent
of Education
Also included in today’s
message:
NIU’s Illinois Interactive Report
Card
NIU has developed an Illinois Interactive Report Card as
part of an intergovernmental agreement/partnership with the Illinois State Board
of Education. Parents, teachers, school administrators and anyone interested in
the state of public education in
2003-04 Driver Education Cost Claim
DUE OCTOBER 1
The 2003-04 Driver Education Cost
Claim is now
open in the Illinois State Board of Education’s Web Application Security (IWAS)
system. School districts who operate Driver Education programs must
file a cost claim on or before
Tax Anticipation Warrant Program
The State of
For information or assistance, please contact Nona Myers
or Eric Watson with the State of
The
The Enhancing Education through Technology allocations
through Title II-D of No Child Left Behind are now
available. Districts eligible for the Title I Basic grant are also
eligible for this grant. Allocations are available online at http://www.isbe.net/curriculum/elearning/pdf/formula_05_allocation.pdf.
To apply for these funds, submit an amendment to your approved
Metlife Essay
Contest
MetLife is sponsoring the
2004 MetLife Scholars Program Essay Contest for students in Grades 6 to 12. The
topic of this year's essay contest is "Immigrant Contributions to
For more information,
contact scholar@metlife.com
National Book Scholarship Fund Offers
Literacy Materials
ProLiteracy Worldwide is
accepting applications for its National Book Scholarship Fund (NBSF), an annual
program that supplies books and materials to local literacy programs. New
Readers Press, the publishing division of ProLiteracy Worldwide, provides the
books and materials that are available from the NBSF.
The NBSF makes grants to
literacy or educational programs. First priority will be given to programs that
focus on family literacy. English as a second language projects, adult basic
educational programs, and projects that involve women-focused literacy or ESL
programming will also be considered for support.
NBSF grants have ranged from
$500 to $7,000, although greater or lesser amounts of funding are considered.
Programs awarded a grant must provide a cash contribution to ProLiteracy
Worldwide equal to 20 percent of the grant award. These funds are used to defray
the costs of NBSF program administration. Organizations that have been
affiliates of ProLiteracy for one year or more provide a cash contribution equal
to 10 percent of the grant award.
Proposals will be considered
immediately upon receipt. Awards will be made until funds are exhausted. For
complete program information and application form, visit: http://nbsf.org/apply.asp
English Language
Learner Students in US Public Schools: 1994 and 2000
This Issue Brief examines growth in the
population of English Language Learner (ELL) students in
The Issue Brief also examined the extent
to which ELL students were concentrated in schools in 1999-2000.
Nationally in 1999-2000, 62 percent of public school students were in schools
with an ELL student population of less than 1 percent of the school
population. However, in the West, 19 percent of students were in schools
with ELL populations comprising at least 25 percent of the school population; 7
percent of students in the West were in schools comprising over 50 percent ELL
students.
To download, view and print the report as
a PDF file, please visit: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2004035
Prudential Spirit of
Community Awards
The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards
were created in 1995 by Prudential Financial, Inc. in partnership with the
National Association of Secondary School Principals (http://www.nassp.org/)
to honor middle and high school students
for outstanding volunteer service to their communities. Over the past nine years
the program has honored more than 55,000 young volunteers at the local, state,
and national level.
To be eligible for the program, a student
must be in fifth grade or above, in any state, the District of Columbia, or
Puerto Rico as of October 29, 2004; have engaged in a volunteer activity that
occurred at least in part after September 1, 2003; and complete an application
and submit it to a school principal or the head of an officially designated
local organization by October 29, 2004. The officially designated local
organizations are a Girl Scout council, county 4-H organizations, Camp Fire USA
council, YMCA, American Red Cross chapter, or member Volunteer Center of the
Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National
Network.
Each participating school/organization
will collect applications from interested students/members by the
Local honorees receive certificates of
achievement from their schools or organizations. State honorees receive a $1,000
award, an engraved silver medallion, and an all-expenses-paid trip with a parent
to
Complete program information and
application instructions are available at the program's Web
site: http://prudential.com/spirit
Teacher
Surveys
ISBE is repeating the very successful on-line Teachers
Survey of Needs as a tool for the Mathematics and Science Partnerships
planning. The survey can be found at: www.isbe.net/teachers.htm (between
September 1 and November 1). It is vital to have as many teachers complete
this 10-minute survey as possible. It includes questions about experience,
teaching assignments and out-of-pocket expenses. We had more than 2,000
responses to last year’s survey, but it is vital that we exceed that baseline
this year. Please encourage your district’s teachers of science and
mathematics to become a part of the process. Their input is very
important.
As previously reported in the Superintendent’s Bulletin,
the statewide teacher technology survey has been extended through
Hearst Scholarship Applications Due
A $5,000 scholarship and week-long trip to
Harriet Fulbright to
Speak
Mrs. Harriet Fulbright will be speaking at the Illinois
State Library in
Principal’s Flip
Chart
The division of Curriculum and Instruction is proud to
announce a new publication entitled “Principal’s Flip Chart for Grades 4-8.”
This flip chart is intended to give administrators an overview on effective
literacy practices that should be taking place for students in Grades 4-8.
Specific information is provided relative to content area reading and writing
instruction. Copies should be available in October. The division is also working
on a flip chart for high school administrators as well as updating the previous
early grades flip charts. These should be available in late November. For more
information contact Anne Sustik at asustik@isbe.net.
REMINDER - Assessment Data
Update
Due to the large number of data corrections, final ISAT
and IMAGE reports will not be posted on SchoolHouse (www.ncsschoolhouse.com) until
Log onto www.ncsschoolhouse.com
REMINDER -
Public Act
93-857
This is to notify you of the enactment and
implementation of Public Act 93-857 – Prairie State Achievement Examination
as a Condition of Graduation.
On August 3, 2004, Governor Blagojevich signed Senate
Bill 2769 (Public Act 93-857) to require all students to take the Prairie State
Achievement Examination (PSAE) as a condition of receiving a regular high school
diploma unless the student is exempted because:
Changes for the 2004-2005 School
Year
As the new law is effective immediately, school
districts will be required to ensure all students graduating during the 2004-05
school year, and all subsequent years, have taken the PSAE prior to the issuance
of a diploma. Any seniors for this school year that have not already taken
the PSAE should register by
Day 1 of the retake is to be taken on
During the 2004-05 school year, students who are not
able to participate in the retake may take just Day 1 on another national ACT
test date (see schedule below) to meet the new requirement. In order for
these ACT scores to meet the requirement for taking the PSAE, students will need
to register using a paper ACT registration folder and a PSAE Day 1
Voucher. Directions and copies of the voucher to be used for test dates
beyond October will be provided to superintendents
shortly.
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Registration
Deadline |
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Future School
Years
School districts are reminded that the Prairie State
Achievement Examination is to be administered to all eligible grade 11 students.
Additional direction will be forthcoming concerning the examination process for
students in future years who have not taken the PSAE prior to entering grade
12.
School Board
Policy
School boards should adopt policies concerning this new
provision in the law, including:
Within two weeks, the Student Assessment Division will
provide you with details related to the use of vouchers for 2004-2005 ACT
national test dates beyond October. All of the above information will be
online at www.isbe.net/assessment/psae.htm
.
REMINDER -
The Illinois Assessment Frameworks are blueprints for
the state assessments that will be administered beginning in the 2005-2006
school year. These frameworks are not intended to be
content curriculum guides but instead provide districts with guidelines to what
and when areas of the Illinois Learning Standards will be
assessed.
The Frameworks were first posted in October 2003, in
order to move along our test design process. Through this process, however,
practitioners have provided input and guidance on these documents. Therefore,
the Student Assessment Division has incorporated this input into the Frameworks.
The revised
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.