Leadership Matters November 2013

State Superintendent steps up for kids, schools with 5Essentials decision

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and State Superintendent Dr. Chris Koch often come under fire for decisions and mandates that we as superintendents view as not being in the best interests of public education or the

“I want to thank Dr. Koch for listening to our concerns as superintendents and principals on the front lines of public education, and for making a courageous --

Message from the Executive Director Dr. Brent Clark

reductions in force -- and then attempting to use some statistical norm to compare one district to another or one school to another. I want to thank Dr. Koch for listening to our concerns as superintendents and principals on the front lines of public education, and for making a courageous -- though not politically popular -- decision that clearly was in the best interest of using the information from the survey to improve schools rather than to rate them. In this first year, there were instances of districts receiving more surveys than they had teachers or students. The first comparative ratings that were sent to districts showed instances of more than 85 percent of respondents answering “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” to a question only for the statisticians’ rating to come back “Neutral” or “Weak,” apparently because not enough people chose “Strongly Agree” - - meaning “Agree” ended up being counted as a negative response. The purpose of the survey is to give school administrators information to use internally for improvement and that is exactly how we intend to utilize the data. Dr. Koch and his staff at ISBE have pledged to work with us to improve the next survey that will be administered in an attempt to make the information more valid and reliable and give us a better tool with which to work. For people who really care about improving education instead of some artificial ranking, those are the types of decisions of integrity that should be applauded, not criticized. though not politically popular -- decision that clearly was in the best interest of using the information from the survey to improve schools rather than to rate them.” —Dr. Brent Clark, IASA Executive Director State Superintendent Dr. Christopher Koch

children we are charged with educating. But when Dr. Koch and ISBE make difficult but fair and correct decisions despite predictable backlash from certain reform groups and the media, I think those stances are cause for us to stand up and show our support. Recent examples include:  Changing the Certified School Nurse mandate rules;  Proposing rule changes to allow local school boards to determine class size and ratios for special education and all students. We still have work to do to get this issue approved by the ISBE Board, but Dr. Koch has been supportive; and  Holding off publishing the flawed comparative ratings from the first statewide 5Essentials Survey To no one’s surprise, reform groups and some editorial boards took Dr. Koch and ISBE to task regarding the 5Essentials Survey despite all of the problems that had been identified with the survey itself. The editorials’ main point seemed to be that the state spent some $600,000 to administer the survey (money that probably could have been better used in the classroom), so they need to report the summative rating regardless of the quality of the data. In reality, ISBE is making all of the raw data available to anyone who wishes to access it by the simple act of clicking on a link. Citizens would be well served to read that data and form their own opinions as opposed to accepting some statistical ranking that compares the climate of downstate schools to Chicago Public System schools, rural schools to urban schools and poorer schools to richer schools. To be perfectly clear, we are not at all fearful of the results of the survey, but we do have serious concerns regarding the reliability and validity of comparative ratings given issues regarding the security of the survey, the applicability statewide of certain questions on the survey, administering the survey at the same time pink slips were being given to teachers in districts that had to implement

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