On Monday, Oct. 30, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) published the 2023 School Illinois School Report Card at www.illinoisreportcard.com. The Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) tests all students in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics, while fifth and eighth-grade students are assessed in science. The performance on this assessment is what constitutes the 2023 Illinois School Report Card. This report card presents metrics on every Illinois school, including achievement, growth, school funding, and demographics. It also gives each school a summative designation – a descriptor of how well the school is meeting its students’ needs. In addition to the state’s website, you can also find District and individual school results on our website.
District 58 is proud and excited to share that our students made achievement gains in all three areas of the assessment when compared to last school year. ELA increased by 11.9%, mathematics increased by 2.0% and science increased by 3.9%. Due to our strong performance on the IAR, all District 58 schools earned either exemplary or commendable, the state’s highest summative designation. Information from ISBE regarding summative designations can be found here. Additionally, an explanation of how designations are calculated can be found here.
District 58 is also proud and excited to share that we have met the Key Performance Indicators established by the Board of Education for achievement/academic proficiency and growth.
Key Performance Indicator #1 - Academic Proficiency
The academic proficiency indicator measures the percentage of students who have demonstrated grade-level proficiency in reading and math as measured by objective assessments. Academic proficiency is reported in grades 3-8 via the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) and grades K-8 via NWEA MAP assessments.
Metric: Percentage of students meeting or exceeding state proficiency benchmark
Benchmark: State 75th percentile for Reading (ELA); State 85th percentile for Math
2023 Performance: 90th percentile for ELA; 94th percentile for Math
Key Performance Indicator #2 - Academic Growth
The academic growth indicator measures the degree to which students are demonstrating personal growth on objective assessments. It reports the degree to which students scored above or below their personalized projection in reading and math. Personalized projections are set using a student’s prior assessment history to project his/her most probable score on an assessment. Assessment growth is reported in grades 3-8 via the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) and grades 1 through 8 for NWEA MAP assessments.
Metric: Percentage of students demonstrating expected or higher-than-expected growth
Benchmark: 85%
2023 Performance: 85% of students demonstrated expected or higher growth as measured by ECRA.
We continue to analyze and improve all facets of our programming via a robust school improvement process with a focus on student outcomes. We not only examine assessment data on the annual Illinois School Report Card and other reports but more importantly, in the classroom learning that occurs daily in our schools.
In addition to various school improvement initiatives at the individual buildings, a major area of focus for improvement in District 58 will be chronic absenteeism. This year’s report card data indicates that the District experienced an increase in chronic absenteeism by 6.3% from the previous year. Overall, 16.4% of District 58 students were chronically absent last year. This means that those students missed more than 10% of the school year or approximately 18 days. Chronic absenteeism has a detrimental impact on students emotionally, socially and academically. If your child is having difficulty attending school, please reach out to your building principal (our team will also be in touch). The District has a number of support options available to assist families. We need your support to reverse this alarming trend. Many of our students have made a great deal of progress. Our goal is for all students to make progress and attendance plays a critical role in helping our students grow and achieve to their fullest potential.
In the past, the District administration would visit each school in the evening to present to families the Illinois School Report Card. Attendance has been very low at these events so we are discontinuing that practice. Last week, we shared extensive data with the Board of Education about student assessments and the school improvement process. You can read the Board Briefs here or view the Board meeting video. We will also share a complete analysis of this year’s Illinois School Report Card data at our next Board meeting on Nov. 13, 2023, at 7 p.m.
Please feel free to reach out to your building principal or our Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Liz Ehrhart if you have any questions or would like additional information. We are here to support our families’ understanding of the Illinois School Report Card.