Preliminary state test results are expected to be released to Illinois school districts this month. Chicago Public Schools plans to use the latest data to assess progress at elementary schools in a new way.
Ginger Reynolds is head of research and accountability at the district. She says the current measure of school progress doesn’t take into account individual student achievement. Reynolds says the new formula will change that.REYNOLDS: There could be some low performing schools that actually are adding quite a bit of student achievement over the year for their students, but we might not be able to see that if all we were looking at were absolute performance on, for example, the ISAT.
Schools that don’t meet minimums on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test are put on probation. That means the district gets tighter control over the school. Reynolds says last year, about 42-percent of the district’s elementary schools were on probation.