|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December
17 , 2002
Assessment
and Accountability Task Force recommendations go before the
State Board of Education
Recommendations of the State Superintendent’s Assessment
and Accountability Task Force to bring Illinois into line
with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 regarding assessment
and adequate yearly progress issues are on the State Board
of Education’s agenda Wednesday and Thursday.
State Superintendent of Education Robert E. Schiller created
the Task Force in October to study the issues and make recommendations
for consideration by the General Assembly in the Spring 2003
session. The Task Force is co chaired by Schiller and Superintendent
Robert Neilson of Bloomington School District 87.
No Child Left Behind requires all states to test students’
achievement of reading and mathematics standards annually
in grades three through eight by the 2005-06 school year,
and assess achievement of science standards at three grade
levels as of 2007-08.. Illinois currently tests students in
reading, mathematics and writing at grades 3, 5 and 8, and
students in science and social science in grades 4 and 7.
All five subjects are tested in grade 11 with the Prairie
State Achievement Examination (PSAE).
After six day-long meetings and five public hearings, the
Task Force produced preliminary recommendations and requested
public comments on their content. After reviewing 332 comments
and suggestions regarding the draft proposal, the Task Force
produced the following recommendations on December 10th to
be considered by the State Board:
- Testing reading and mathematics annually in grades 3 through
8 as required by NCLB;
- Changing writing assessments from grades 3, 5 and 8 to
grades 3, 4, 6 and 8, and to one genre in grades 3 and 4
and two in grades 6 and 8;
- Moving social science tests to grades 5 and 8;
- * Modify use of the Illinois Alternate Assessment in terms
of scoring periods and scoring process for 2002-03 and thereafter
until a long-term process is put into place;
- Having the state pay for tests that schools could use
voluntarily -- writing at grade 10 and ACT preparatory tests
(EXPLORE at grade 8 or 9 and PLAN at grade 10);
- * Use of a national norm-referenced test producer under
contract in terms of the next revision of ISAT for use in
2005-06
- More rapid return of test results to enable earlier diagnostics
and intervention.
No changes were recommended at this time for the PSAE, which
is a combination of state-developed items and the ACT and
the ACT WorkKeys. A work group is looking at IMAGE and to
date has not recommended any changes.
|
