Here’s how the 2023 Illinois Report Card will measure your school’s performance
Monday at 9 a.m., the Illinois State Board of Education will publish the 2023 Illinois Report Card, its annual roundup of how the state and each public district and school within it performed during the previous school year.
The report card is the main tool of Illinois’ school accountability system and “offers a complete picture of student and school performance in order to inform and empower families and communities as they support their local schools,” according to the state board’s website.
The state board collects data on a range of academic and student success metrics and then assigns schools one of five categories according to their performance. Those in the lowest-performing three categories receive assistance and funding to improve their outcomes.
The state board has been producing the report card for every district and school since 1986, and the report card for the state as a whole since 2002.
Federal law requires states and school districts to prepare and disseminate a report card providing information on their performance and progress. Illinois law further outlines when and how the state board must prepare and provide the state’s report card as well as the report cards for districts and their schools.
The state law also requires school districts to share their report card results within 30 days of receiving them at a regular board meeting, on their websites and by sending a physical copy home to parents upon request.
To create the report card for districts and their schools, the state board gathers data from school districts for various “accountability indicators.” Schools get a score on a scale of 100 for each indicator, then those indicator scores are weighted and added up to calculate a school’s “index score,” also out of 100. The state board also creates an index score for all student groups within a school.
The state board then issues a “summative designation” to each school based on its index score. The highest-performing 10% of schools receive an “exemplary” designation and the lowest-performing 5% of schools receive a “comprehensive support” designation.
All schools in between receive a “commendable” designation, unless one or more of the school’s student groups is performing in line with the lowest-performing 5% of schools, in which case the school receives a “targeted support” designation. There is a new, fifth designation this year called “intensive support.”
To learn more about the methodology used for the Illinois Report Card so you know how to interpret your school’s results, the Belleville News-Democrat talked with Jackie Matthews, executive director of communications for the state board, and reviewed numerous fact sheets and other resources on the state board’s website.
What are the ‘accountability indicators’?
The accountability indicators are broken into two categories: academic indicators, like English language arts and math proficiency, and school quality and student success indicators, such as chronic absenteeism.
Three-fourths of a school’s index score is based on academic indicators and the remaining fourth is based on school quality and student success indicators.
For elementary and middle schools, the indicators are:
English language arts and math growth, worth 25% each.
English language arts and math proficiency, worth 7.5% each.
Science proficiency, worth 5%.
English learners’ proficiency progress, worth 5%.
Chronic absenteeism, worth 20%.
Climate survey, worth 5%.
For high schools, the indicators are:
Graduation rate, worth 50%.
English language arts and math proficiency, worth 7.5% each.
Science proficiency, worth 5%.
English learners’ proficiency progress, worth 5%.
Chronic absenteeism, worth 10%.
Climate survey, worth 6.67%.
Ninth-graders on track to graduate, worth 8.33%.
English language arts and math growth and proficiency for elementary and middle schools are based on students’ results on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, the state’s standardized test for grades three through eight administered every spring.
English language arts and math proficiency for high schools are based on students’ SAT results. The SAT is the only state-mandated test for high school students, with all juniors being required to take it.
Science proficiency is based on results on the Illinois Science Assessment, the state’s standardized test for grades five, eight and 11 also conducted in the spring.
Notably, 50% of elementary and middle schools’ index scores are based on academic growth, while proficiency is worth 20% total.
Proficiency measures whether students are meeting state standards. Growth measures whether students are making progress toward or beyond those standards. A student could therefore make growth but not meet proficiency.
According to the state board, proficiency “strongly correlates” with a student’s family income and education level, while growth is responsive to changes in classroom instruction.
Academic growth is not among the indicators for high schools because there is no way to measure it with only one required standardized test, the SAT for juniors.
From ‘accountability indicators’ to ‘summative designations’
Here are the first four of five designations a school could receive, in order from highest- to lowest-performing:
Exemplary indicates that the school is in the top 10% statewide in terms of overall performance and has no underperforming student groups at or below the “all students” group of the lowest-performing 5% of schools. High schools with this designation must have a graduation rate higher than 67%.
Commendable indicates that the school is not in the top 10% but still has no underperforming student groups and a high school graduation rate higher than 67%.
Targeted support indicates that the school has one or more underperforming student groups.
Comprehensive support indicates that the school is in the bottom 5% of Title I-eligible schools statewide in terms of overall performance. All high schools with a graduation rate at or below 67% receive this designation.
Schools receiving the targeted or comprehensive support designations for the first time enter into “school improvement status” and a “four-year cycle of school improvement.” This cycle includes assistance from the state board and a four-year “school improvement grant” through Title I, the federal grant program that flows through states to help school districts serving students from low-income families.
The first year of the cycle requires a school to conduct a needs assessment and develop an improvement plan, which is then implemented in the three remaining years.
The 2022-23 school year was the first that any school ended a school improvement cycle since the state started issuing summative designations in 2018. Schools previously designated as targeted support in 2018 but have not shown improvement for one or more of the same student groups will be escalated to comprehensive support this year and enter another four-year school improvement cycle. Schools that were previously designated as comprehensive support but have not shown improvement will be escalated to a new, fifth designation called intensive support and subject to more rigorous state involvement.
Schools that were previously designated as targeted or comprehensive support in 2018 but receive an exemplary or commendable designation this year will exit school improvement status.
Due to the post-pandemic uncertainties, schools designated for the first time as targeted or comprehensive support in 2022 will have the opportunity to exit from the school improvement status early. To do so, they must receive an exemplary or commendable designation on this year’s report card and have assessment participation rates at or higher than 95%.
This year, the following metro-east schools are eligible for early exit, according to the state board: Granite City High School (Granite City 9), Gilson Brown Elem School and West Elementary School (Alton 11), Whiteside Middle School (Whiteside 115), Union Elementary School (Belleville 118), Cahokia High School and Estelle Sauget School of Choice (Cahokia 187), Lovejoy Elementary School (Brooklyn 188) and East St. Louis Senior High School (East St. Louis 189).
