Local officials say grading systems need fresh overhaul
By Peter Hancock | Capitol News Illinois
SPRINGFIELD – Education officials from five statewide organizations are pushing for fundamental changes in the way student achievement is measured each year and how schools are held accountable for meeting the state’s academic standards.
In a new report entitled Vision 2030, organizations representing local school boards, superintendents, principals, district business officers, and regional superintendents argue that in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire landscape of public education has been dramatically altered, presenting new challenges and heightened scrutiny of public schools.
The report is similar to one the same groups released about a decade ago, Vision 20/20, that pushed for reform of the state’s school funding system, eventually leading to the adoption of the Evidence-Based Funding formula that is used today to steer state funding to the neediest school districts.
The new report makes recommendations on several aspects of public education, such as improving schools’ focus on college and career readiness, enhancing student safety and well-being, and attracting and retaining a diverse educator workforce – all subjects that are routinely at the center of most discussions about education policy.
But the groups also argue in the new report that it’s time to take a new look at the whole system of outcomes-based accountability for schools, something that has been a central focus of public education since the 1990s.
They say the current system of grading schools based largely on standardized test scores fails to give an accurate picture of how well students are doing or what schools need to do to improve.
“This might seem counter intuitive, but educators do welcome accountability,” Jason Leahy, executive director of the Illinois Principals Association, said during a media briefing about the report. “But we just want to make sure that the accountability really talks about the comprehensive work that educators do, much more than just test scores.”
State Assessments
In the 1990s, Illinois, along with most other states, began moving to an outcomes-based education model in which teachers, schools, and districts were graded based on how well their students were learning. That was measured by how students performed on standardized tests that were tied to the state’s official learning standards for each subject and grade level.
Such systems became a federal mandate in 2002 with passage of the No Child Left Behind Act – later replaced by the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act – which required standardized testing as a condition of receiving federal education funding. NCLB also required states to adopt systems of holding schools and districts accountable – through things like focused remedial programs or administrative sanctions – for making continuous improvement toward the goal of having all students meet or exceed the state’s academic standards.
Today in Illinois, students are tested in English language arts and math in grades 3-8 by taking the Illinois Assessment of Readiness. And starting this year, high school students will be tested using the ACT set of exams, which are replacing the SAT exams that have been used in previous years.
Schools also administer the Illinois Science Assessment in grades 5 and 8.
Read more here.
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