* The way the state’s student assessments are calculated has allowed some of the usual suspects to twist the results into claiming that Illinois is an abject failure. For instance, this is from a Wall Street Journal editorial…
No one thought Illinois schools were a shining beacon in the education landscape, but we didn’t know how truly awful so many of them are. A new report by Wirepoints using the state’s data shows that an epidemic of indifferent instruction and social promotion has left children unable to perform at even the most basic educational level.
* In the real world, our benchmark standards are higher than almost all other states…
Illinois has some of the most rigorous learning standards in the nation: ranking fourth most rigorous for 4th grade reading and fifth most rigorous for 8th grade reading. In Illinois, a student needs to earn a level of 4 or 5 to be considered proficient.
In comparison, the rigor of Florida’s standards ranks 39th and 42nd, respectively, and a student only needs to earn a level 3 on the state assessment to be considered proficient.
(This was a Bruce Rauner initiative, by the way. Seems almost as if he designed it to deliberately make Illinois look bad so that pointy wires and others could scream bloody murder about the evil teachers unions.)
* This is how State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders recently explained what’s going on…
Imagine you have a child competing in a track meet. She has trained diligently for her event – the 100-meter hurdles – but to qualify for the medal round, she must finish in the top three in her heat. As the runners take their places at the starting line, you can feel your heartbeat quicken.
And they’re off! Your daughter is first out of the blocks, but it’s apparent as she crosses each hurdle that she is falling further and further behind the leaders. In a flash the race is over, and despite a valiant effort your daughter finishes fourth.
As you head to the finish line to console your child, you notice something odd out of the corner of your eye. The hurdles in your daughter’s lane are not the same height as those in other lanes – in fact, they are about six inches higher! When you find a track official and point out the clearly uneven playing field, the official appears sympathetic but shrugs his shoulders. “That’s the way we’ve set up this event for as long as I can remember,” he explains. “I know it’s unfair,” he adds, “but I don’t make the rules.”
Sounds ridiculous, right? Something that would never happen. And yet, that’s essentially what’s happening to students in Illinois today. Our current system of student assessment, which should be designed to accurately determine which students are on pace to succeed in college or career, is asking Illinois students to jump over hurdles that are higher than those faced by students in other states.
* Red Bud High School Principal…
* Back to Superintendent Sanders…
Our cut scores for proficiency are 60 points higher in English language arts and 10 points higher in math than the College Board’s national college readiness benchmarks, which indicate a 75% chance of earning at least a C in first-semester, credit-bearing college courses. It’s an uneven playing field that is sending the wrong messages to students and families across Illinois, and it’s been that way for nearly a decade.
Realigning student assessment is one way we can create a more equitable education system, and it isn’t the only way. We also need to reevaluate how schools themselves are assessed. When there are schools with 0% of students proficient in English language arts or math in the same category as schools that have 80% of students proficient and all are labeled “commendable,” we must acknowledge there’s a problem. When 73% of our schools are labeled “commendable,” despite performance indicators that may be telling a different story, we have to agree it’s time to solve that problem.
If we are to provide a statewide system of support that effectively and equitably directs resources to the places of greatest need, we simply must have more accurate measurements of student success and school performance. […]
Over the next two years ISBE will undergo a process to engage stakeholders across the state in updating and providing feedback on our ESSA State Plan.
Not a bad idea, but the ISBE definitely needs to do both of the things that Sanders mentioned: Align our assessment system with the rest of the country, and tackle the all-too real problems some schools face.
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 1:25 pm:
“No one thought Illinois schools were a shining beacon in the education landscape, but we didn’t know how truly awful so many of them are.”
LOL.
The entirety of the American south is right there if WSJ really wants to talk about deficient educational achievement. Incredible myopia.
- Chicagonk - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 1:27 pm:
You truly do learn something new every day.
- Google Is Your Friend - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 1:34 pm:
==some of the usual suspects==
Unfortunately, this also includes multiple legislators who sit on education committees as well.
- New Day - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 1:50 pm:
This is potentially an enormous political challenge. How do you “lower” standards to align them nationally without taking a HUGE political hit that you’re lowering student achievement standards.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 1:59 pm:
===without taking a HUGE political hit===
It’s a pretty good Rauner trap.
- Juice - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 3:14 pm:
Fun fact about the WSJ editorial board’s weird obsession with what’s wrong in Illinois. The Editorial Page Editor, Paul Gigot, and Bruce Rauner were frat brothers at the Theta Delta Chi fraternity at Dartmouth.
- TS - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 3:41 pm:
A comparison of college graduation rates may be a better indicator of which way the nation should steer in regards to these standards. Maybe states like Florida should increase their standards if their college graduation rates are lower comparatively to Illinois for example. If college grad rates are comparable, that is a better argument to lower the Illinois standards.
- JS Mill - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 4:10 pm:
The issue with Illinois cut scores (not standards) and national cut scores has been with us since at least the early 2000’s. WHat Tony Sanders may not know, is that this is an issue within our own system of reporting on state assessments. Going back to the ISAT/PSAE days ISAT proficiency was pegged at the 38th national percentile while the PSAE was pegged at the 60th national percentile. This meant that many high schools failed to meet NCLB requirements and then were penalized. I discovered this when I began looking into the issue after getting shellacked in a school board meeting because our lower grades “were doing great but the high school was doing poorly”. Kind of what pointy points is doing here.
When I returned to the board with my new found discovery they were underwhelmed until I showed them the results when I applied the 60th percentile to our lower grades of the 38th to our high school. It was an eye opener.
What I don’t understand is why some states are allowed to use such lowe cut scores for proficiency. That always should have been set by the department of education and applied nationally.
=When there are schools with 0% of students proficient in English language arts or math in the same category as schools that have 80% of students proficient and all are labeled “commendable,” we must acknowledge there’s a problem.=
This is the “equity” problem created when they designed the ESSA designations. There has been a quite effort to devalue assessment scores in these ratings because of how poorly some urban and high poverty districts perform, like CPS. To some degree, emphasizing other things that schools do well is correct and valuable. STudent success is not only determined by an assessment score.
But the scores are a valid measure and should carry significant weight when rating schools. Not total, but significant.
=effectively and equitably directs resources to the places=
Code for giving CPS more funds usually.
Listen, I have criticized CPS (especially CTU) for their results at times. But I have always acknowledged that some of those results are the product of minor miracles by some of their teachers and admins. A large number of their kids come from the neediest of families. But so do our students. Our poverty number is over 40% and climbing yet our resources coming from the state are declining as other “poor” districts have experienced a large increase in funding from the state. We do our kids count less? I have asked that question in several meetings with the ISBE, they never have much of a response.
I agree with Sanders, but I am not hopeful of the result until I actually see it. The cynical part of me thinks this will be tailored to help some specific districts and we won’t be among them.
- Michelle Flaherty - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 4:52 pm:
– Paul Gigot, and Bruce Rauner were frat brothers at the Theta Delta Chi fraternity at Dartmouth. –
Carhartt night at the Delta Chi house is always a wild one at Dartmouth.
- DTownResident - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 5:25 pm:
Isbe was at one point looking to the shorter assessments like fast bridge that are taken a couple to.es a year and teachers get to see while the kids are still in their classrooms. I would like for the state tests for K-8 to move in that direction so that something like that is there with no big huge test at the end of the year like now
- thisjustinagain - Thursday, Mar 21, 24 @ 6:28 pm:
This reminds me of the constant “moving the goalposts” of student testing in Illinois, so that year-to-year comparisons became all but impossible using the state test data, because the tests and standards were changing so often.