“Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest news on Chicago Public Schools. The Illinois State Board of Education unanimously approved an overhaul to its system for deciding how well schools across the state are performing. The changes to the federally required school accountability system include some new labels that indicate how well a school is doing. The new system would also calculate the designations differently. The proposed changes now go to the federal government for final approval; State Superintendent Tony Sanders said he expects a green light. With federal approval, the new accountability system would go into effect by this fall. Under the current system, schools were labeled as Exemplary, Commendable, Comprehensive, Targeted, and Intensive, with the latter three that deemed a school needed more support. The new system has the following labels: Exemplary, Approaching Exemplary, Commendable, Developing, and Comprehensive. Using 2025 school data as an example, officials found that this new system would more evenly distribute schools across these designations, with the Commendable label applying to 23% of K-8 schools and 29% of high schools, versus 73% for all schools currently. More schools also would have been considered “exemplary” under the new system — roughly one-fifth of K-8 and high schools, compared with 10% under the current system. Schools that earn the lowest designations are supposed to get extra state funding to help improve. Sanders described the changes as one of his biggest goals, and board members described the public feedback process as a thoughtful one that resulted in tweaks to the original proposal. “Everybody is not going to be happy about it, and that’s OK,” said ISBE board vice chair Donna S. Leak. “What we’re trying to do is find ways to connect to student achievement in a more meaningful way.” ISBE officials extended the timeline for getting feedback on its proposed changes, which it unveiled last fall . Still, ahead of ISBE’s vote Wednesday, several education advocacy groups remained opposed to some elements of the overhaul, including the removal of a measure for whether ninth graders are on track for graduation and another measure for capturing student attendance that the groups argue isn’t sufficient. Federal education law has long required states to craft accountability systems for its schools and required them to administer state tests. ISBE created its current system in 2017 after an overhaul of K-12 education law under former President Barack Obama. The current system, which ranks schools based on a weighted system, was giving many schools “the wrong signal” that they were doing better than they actually are, Sanders said at an ISBE meeting last month. “I don’t think there’s anybody that I’ve met in public education that would say that our current accountability has worked effectively at moving school improvement for student outcomes over these past few years,” Sanders said. ISBE spokesperson Lindsay Record said state officials will share resources such as infographics, short videos, and FAQs with the public ahead of this fall to help the families understand the new system. To earn the new designations, schools will be scored based on what ISBE is calling “core indicators,” or what it considers the most important markers of academic performance; those include student academic growth, proficiency on core subjects, and graduation rates for high schools. Under the new system, a school’s label is determined by its strongest core indicator. But if any of the indicators score at the lowest “comprehensive” level, then the school’s designation would be knocked down a level. For example, if an elementary school’s student growth ranks at the exemplary — or the highest — level, but its student proficiency is considered comprehensive, or the lowest, then that school would be given the designation of approaching exemplary, or the second highest label. Schools can earn higher scores if they do well on “elevating indicators,” including how well English learners are growing and if many students are attending school at least 90% of the time — the opposite of the definition for chronic absenteeism. Some groups have argued that threshold is too low, citing research that has found students do better academically when they’re attending school more often than 90%. In Chicago, the state’s biggest district, the chronic absenteeism rate was around 40% last school year compared with about 25% statewide. Some education groups have lingering concerns The department made some changes between the fall and now in response to concerns, such as clarifying the labels for schools and adding an additional indicator for determining whether high schools are successful, according to its amended accountability plan. But it didn’t reinsert the 9th Grade On-Track measure, arguing that it is important but not “meaningfully” different from a school’s graduation rate. The measure will still be publicly reported on the state report card. But some education advocacy groups argued that 42 states measure college and career readiness in some way. They said they hope ISBE will explore a process to consider adding these measures back in somehow. Weighing school performance based on graduation rates without another readiness measure “can obscure whether students are truly prepared for what comes after high school,” said Hal Woods, chief of policy for Kids First Chicago. In Chicago, a Chalkbeat and WBEZ investigation found that student absenteeism was growing as the graduation rate grew, even as research shows that absenteeism is linked to lower academic performance. Perla Santoya, senior government relations associate at Advance Illinois, said losing such an indicator sends “an incomplete message about the experiences and skills we want our young people to have.” Still, some other educator groups said they were pleased by the changes and praised the state for being open to feedback. “What you have in front of you today, I believe, is fair,” Emily Warnecke, chief of staff at the Illinois Association of School Administrators. “It is reflective of the great work that is happening in our schools across the state, and it still maintains very high expectations for our students.” Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
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