Page 5 - Leadership Matters February 2013_3140b78f.pub

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ISBE shoves schools off testing ‘cliff’
By Dr. Thomas E. Bertrand
Superintendent
Rochester Comm Unit #3A
Last week, school districts across
the state received an email from
Illinois State Superintendent Chris
Koch pertaining to the proposed
increase in “cut” scores used for the
Illinois Standards Achievement Test
(ISAT) that is administered each
spring to students in grades 3-8. Cut
scores are used to determine a range of scores
necessary to assign a student an overall performance
level of “exceeds standards,” “meets standards,”
“below standards,” or “academic warning,” in the areas
of reading, math and science.
Superintendent Koch
stated in his email to schools
that “the increase in
performance levels will align
our expectations for our grade
3-8 students with the more
rigorous standards of the new
Common Core State
Standards that are focused on
college and career readiness.”
Illinois State Board of
Education (ISBE) staff has
made it clear to districts that
the increase in cut scores is
part of the transition to the
new Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers (PARCC)
assessment that all schools will be required to
administer beginning with the 2014-2015 school year.
The impact of these new cut scores will be
dramatic. Rochester District 3A staff applied the
proposed new cut scores to third-grade math results
from the 2012 ISAT tests. This would change the
number of third-grade students who failed to meet
state standards in math from 1% to 25%. Similar
trends will be seen across all grade levels in districts
across the state.
ISBE has advised school administrators to prepare
to have “tough” conversations with the many parents
who will be alarmed that their child is now performing
“below” standards on the same state assessment that
in previous years they earned a “meets” or “exceeds”
designation.
ISBE acknowledges that Illinois’ previous
expectations for grade 3-8 students did not align to the
new Common Core State Standards that are now
focused on success in college and the workforce. So,
why are schools wasting valuable instructional time
and resources by continuing to administer a test that
fails to produce meaningful results?
Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the
“transition” from the ISAT to PARCC assessments and
the increase in cut scores is the disregard for how
these changes will impact the children in our
classrooms.
Why are we subjecting thousands of children and
teachers to the stress of ISAT administration for the
next two years and the humiliation of a pre-determined
course of failure on the ISAT?
How do school staff and
parents explain to a 9-year-
old that their failure to meet
state standards is due to a
statistical adjustment that
will enable ISBE to avoid
the public relations disaster
of a dramatic drop in test
scores with the new PARCC
assessment?
How do school
administrators explain to
their dedicated teachers that
they are doing an
outstanding job of working
with children despite a
dramatic downturn in test
results?
School districts across the state face historic cuts
in state funding and an overwhelming increase in state
mandates, rules and regulations. The pace of these
changes under the guise of “reforms” has accelerated
at the same time that schools face unprecedented
budget deficits due in part to existing state mandates.
This latest decision by ISBE illustrates the
complete disconnect that has developed between the
agency and the dedicated school administrators and
teachers who work every day with the children in our
school districts. It also represents a further erosion of
the local control of duly elected school board members
who represent the very property tax owners who are
paying an increasing percentage of the cost of
education while the state abdicates its responsibility to
fund our schools.
Most importantly, it is not good for the children that
we serve.