For Immediate Release
September 2, 2004
Illinois State Board of Education moves forward with
enhanced state assessments
(Springfield) – Culminating two years of work with
members of the education community, the State Board of
Education Thursday authorized State Superintendent of
Education Robert Schiller to finalize a contract with
an assessment contractor that will develop and score new
tests to be implemented next school year.
The Request for Sealed Proposals was released last August,
and since that time the State Board has been negotiating
with three bidders that would implement the Illinois Enhanced
Assessment System. Schiller will work toward finalizing
a contract with Harcourt Assessment, Inc., which has been
determined to be the most qualified bidder to develop
and score the new tests.
Changes to state assessment mandated under the No Child
Left Behind Act, made it necessary to update the Illinois
Standardized Achievement Test (ISAT) and the Prairie State
Achievement Exam (PSAE). The mandate provided the State
Board with the opportunity to work with members of the
education community in Illinois and together create the
frameworks for the subjects to be assessed, to improve
the reporting of data to and to enhance the delivery of
data to school districts.
“We are confident that the new assessments will
represent the needs of the educational community in Illinois,”
Schiller said. “This has been an involved process
with input from many teachers and administrators in Illinois,
especially the people who served on our Accountability
and Assessment Task Force and committed countless hours
of time and effort to ensure that the new assessments
will be a win-win for school districts statewide.”
In April the State Board of Education and the Assessment
and Accountability Task Force were presented with the
proposals by the three assessment contractors. Last month,
the State Board passed a resolution, which requested input
from the Governor’s office before finalizing a test
contract. The State Board determined that recent substantive
changes to state law and budget cuts affecting the subjects
assessed by the state did not result in substantial and
material changes in the RFSP. The Governor’s office
agreed in writing that ISBE should move forward with the
contract negotiations.
The contract is expected to run from the 2005-2006 school
year through the 2007-2008 school year. The amount of
the contract awarded and its specifications will not be
released until it is finalized, however, Schiller assured
State Board members that they can expect improvements
in the areas of return of Report Card Information and
timelier notifications of Adequate Yearly Progress status.
Currently the ISAT measures individual student achievement
relative to the Illinois Learning Standards. The results
give parents, teachers, and schools one measure of student
learning and school performance. In the 2004-2004 school
year students in grades 3, 5, and 8 will take the ISAT
in reading and mathematics. Students in grades 4 and 7
will take the ISAT in science.
Beginning in the 2005-2006 school year the enhanced ISAT
will be expanded to include assessment of students in
grades 3 through 8 in reading and mathematics, while those
students in grades 4 and 7 will continue to be assessed
in science.
The PSAE measures the achievement of grade 11 students
relative to the Illinois Learning Standards for reading,
mathematics, and science, and will not be expanded to
include additional grades.
|
