MARCH UPDATE: Unfortunately, the final accountability system draft has been released and discussed at the March ISBE meeting and it looks like it’s a done deal. We are disappointed that we are losing the indicators for ninth-grade on-track and college and career readiness, and that schools with 50-point achievement gaps can still receive the highest rating. The one glimmer of hope we have lies in this sentence: “ISBE remains committed to exploring the possibility of additional elevating indicators in the future, particularly in the area of college and career readiness.”

Our last ask is for ISBE to develop a clear timeline for developing a valid college and career readiness indicator to incorporate within three years. Without intentionality, that “commit[ment] to exploring” other indicators means little. Illinois already tracks lots of data that could feed into this metric, like Career and Technical Education concentration, Dual Credits, AP Tests passed, Freshmen-on-Track rates, and Seals of Biliteracy. Forty-two other states have figured this out and included some kind of college and career readiness metric. It’s not just about graduating; it’s about preparing students for what’s next.

If college and career readiness matters to you, would you take a minute to sign this petition?

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In November, we shared our thoughts on proposed changes to Illinois’ school accountability system. Since then, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has released another version. Next month, the third and final draft will be out – so we have one month to act! Sign up with your email to stay informed:

Think of the state’s accountability system as a grading system for schools. Every state in the country must have one. You’ve probably heard of “No Child Left Behind” (“NCLB”), which was replaced by the “Every Student Succeeds Act” (“ESSA”) a decade ago. NCLB had lots of problems, perhaps the biggest flaw being that schools were graded on just one thing: how many kids passed the test. (And that, of course, doesn’t tell us much about the contributions of the school to student learning because test scores are so correlated to family income.)  

So, we celebrated when NCLB was replaced by ESSA, which looked at lots of other ingredients of school quality. States had more flexibility to decide what to consider and how to support schools to improve. (We got to do my favorite work project ever: this  cake video! In fact, if you prefer to get all your ESSA news via recipe videos, click here to jump to the bottom of the blog where we have linked all the recent ones.) 

Every school is going to be held to these standards and receive a rating label based on their performance, so it is super important for us to measure what matters. For parents and communities, this information is often the most accessible way to see how well local schools are doing. If we give schools their grade based on things they can’t control (much like the NCLB era), communities see a distorted picture of the influence of the school. But if we have a well-designed system that measures outcomes accurately, schools are incentivized to focus on improvement and families get a transparent look at school quality.   

Everyone we’ve heard from really likes that the proposed system is based on clear goals instead of ranking schools against each other. The system in place now ranks the top ten percent of schools for the highest rating category, which leaves schools complaining about changing goalposts.  

The current system ranks 70% of schools as “Commendable,” which doesn’t tell us a whole lot. The proposed changes split schools into five rating categories with more clarity in the labels. Draft #1 included the labels: Exemplary, Commendable, Approaching, Developing, and Comprehensive, but many were concerned that they would drop from their prior “Commendable” rating. The newest draft names the labels: Exemplary, Approaching Exemplary, Commendable, Developing, and Comprehensive.  

We appreciate the continued focus on academic growth and reducing chronic absenteeism. (We continue to have concerns with some of the indicators that ISBE is proposing eliminating though.)

The proposed system would be based on three “core indicators” for high schools (proficiency, growth, and graduation rate) and two for elementary (proficiency and growth), with three “elevating indicators” (English Learner growth, consistent attendance rate, and climate survey participation). The first draft based the rating on whichever of the core indicators is highest – which is almost always graduation rate. We and other expressed concerns that graduation rate would mask other student performance indicators, so ISBE addressed this in the new draft, now tying graduation rate to growth or proficiency so graduation rate alone would not determine the final rating.  

The current system was designed to include more robust indicators assessing students’ readiness for graduation, post-secondary education, and career, but the agency was never able to successfully incorporate those. This is disappointing because graduation alone isn’t the goal. Students need meaningful high school experiences that prepare them for their future. Even if the design of the metric didn’t work out, ISBE collects lots of data about early college credit, career pathway completion, and seal of biliteracy attainment – all of which would be great additions to the system.

Freshman-on-track is an incredibly powerful metric, with strong research originating from the Consortium for Chicago School Research showing that students who were ‘on-track’ in 9^th grade were four times more likely to graduate. Chicago was the home of this measure, with a strong focus on freshman-on-track rates driving a large part of CPS’s huge rise in graduation rates over the last 25 years. ISBE says freshman-on-track too closely tracks with graduation rate to be a meaningful indicator. We disagree: freshman-on-track rates change three years before graduation rates, so it gives an earlier indication of changes. It also sends the wrong signal to remove it as an accountability indicator.  

If a student group (like low-income students, Black students, white students, students with IEPs, etc.) scores in the lowest rating category, the final rating moves down one notch. But if a student group falls in the second-to-lowest category, there is not penalty. This could mean a school still scores “Exemplary,” even with a 50-point gap in among student groups. We believe the final rating category should never be higher than two rating categories above the lowest-rated student group.  

The “consistent attendance” (i.e., inverse of chronic absenteeism) metric sorts schools into categories based on whether they hit certain attendance benchmarks. For example, if over 85% of high school students are consistent attendees, the school is ‘Exemplary.’ If 70% – 85% are consistent attendees, the school is ‘Approaching Exemplary.’ (Keep in mind here that 70% is five points lower than state average.) If fewer than 40% of students are consistent attendees, the school is ‘Comprehensive.’ But if a school grows its consistent attendance rate from 70% to 80%, the system does not recognize that.  

First, please sign this petition calling for the Illinois State Board of Education to adopt reasonable policies surrounding college and career readiness indicators and community involvement.

Next, spread the word! Share this blog or any of our videos on social media, ask your friends or colleagues to join you at a listening session, give public comment at the March 11 ISBE Board Meeting, or reach out to us if you have any questions about the content or process.