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The reform group Advance Illinois says the state is a long way from being a front-runner to win Race to the Top funds, at least in the first round of proposals due Jan. 19.
In a report released today, “Can Illinois Race to the Top?” the group lays out specific steps the state needs to take—including a more active role in turning around failing schools—to be competitive for a share of the $4.6 billion that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will dole out to a handful of states. Illinois could get an estimated $200 to $400 million. A national report released in September by The New Teacher Project ranked Illinois as only "somewhat competitive" and behind 17 other states for money that some insiders believe will be awarded to only 10 to 20 states.
“For us to be successful, it’s going to be important for state leaders and local districts to act boldly,” says Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois and a member of the recently named P-20 Council, a state task force charged with building a longitudinal data system to track student outcomes. She added that while Illinois may not be the strongest candidate at the moment, “don’t count us out either.”
If Illinois doesn’t win in the first round, feedback from the U.S. Department of Education in April will give the state a chance to make adjustments before second-round proposals are due in June.
One hurdle for the first deadline is the tight time frame. The report says Illinoischances would be improved if legislators made student performance part of teacher and principal evaluations and lifted the current 260-person cap on alternative teacher certification programs. But the Legislature only goes back into session on three days before Jan. 19, Steans says.
The report also calls on legislators to help struggling districts recruit quality teachers and principals by offering incentives, improving school climate, or increasing teacher support.
Duncan has set out four criteria for grant eligibility: common, rigorous standards and assessments; quality teachers and leaders; data systems to support instruction; and a plan to turn around the lowest-performing schools.
Here are several steps the Illinois State Board of Education should take, according to Advance Illinois report.
- Develop readiness standards for kindergarten and college. At the moment, Illinois does not have these, so schools and the state can’t evaluate whether students are prepared to enter school or post-secondary education.
- Do statewide school climate surveys that measure safety, working conditions, and student and parent engagement. These would provide incentives for schools to improve and give educators a quick indicator of whether new strategies are on the right track.
- Replace the Prairie State Achievement Exam, the standardized test that juniors take, with statewide tests in common subjects like algebra – administered to students when they complete a course. This would allow students to prove their knowledge of material as soon as they learned it.
- Provide more tools for teachers, principals and superintendents to use data; expand data-sharing agreements among Illinois’ many education agencies; and create more public data access. Along these lines, ISBE should create a statewide Education Research Collaborative that would draw on the expertise of the Illinois Education Research Council and the Consortium for Chicago School Research.
ISBE should also take a more active role in helping with school turnarounds. “For good or for ill, Chicago has already set itself on that path,” Steans says. “But not all the failing schools in the state are in Chicago.”
Some other districts that lack Chicago’s turnaround capacity are already on track to get state assistance. ISBE has laid the groundwork for “partnership zones,” which would allow the state to direct resources and help from experienced turnaround partners to struggling schools – similar to the function served by CPS’ Office of School Turnarounds.
A state task force is already working to come up with criteria to determine which schools to target, Steans says. Next, the state will have to ensure it has the legal authority to intervene – possibly by changing the school code.
Funding for dropout recovery and alternative schools was not mentioned in the report, but Steans believes it will also be an important part of Race to the Top efforts.
To close the achievement gap, Steans says, “there’s no question that the applications ought to be looking at dropout recovery programs and alternative schools with a proven track record.”
Though the list of steps the state needs to take is lengthy, the report highlights several recent steps forward, including steps to develop a statewide data system to link performance data to teachers and teacher preparation programs; and the new law doubling the charter cap to 120.
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Read this document and judge your school district and Illinois on what they are NOT doing in comparison to high excelling public school districts in the developed world!
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Unfortunately, the school reform efforts in CPS seem to foster a hostile environment that pits experienced teachers against the young, and charter schools cannibalize traditional schools. Rather than create synergies, CPS has fostered a system that is becoming more polarized. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
It is very important to capture data and measure performance. Unfortunately, we seem to be approaching a level where the collection of the data seems to be the end in and of itself, rather than the means to develop strategies to educate our children. Schools seem so focused on whether or not kids can pass standardized tests that they forget to align the curricula of the schools with the needs of the "real world". If students don't pass the test of the day, then CPS changes the test and/or makes the test simpler. In effect, they have lowered the bar, rather than raised expectations. Given that there are only 4 states with lower academic standards than Illinois, we really can't afford to go much lower.
In many instances, students don't seem prepared to get through high school, get basic skills to be gainfully employed, make it through college, or compete in a global society. We have more information and technology at our finger tips, but are producing students that are less prepared than students in third world countries.
what is the philosophy of albert camus and how did that mirror the liberal arts during the time he was alive?
what is the quadratic formula and how is it derived?
what is mole weight and its relation to avagdo's number?
three simple questions that any high schooler should know. do not have to know the exact details of each but what is important is the identification of the discipline and the basic context of the questions.
go try it out and see what happens.
i do not need millions of dollars of data gathering to tell you schools are not teaching the children in our city. the hubertem is only trying to add on more corruption(data) into the mix to distract from the patronage graft fleecing cps.
John Kugler
kuglerjohn@comcast.net
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