Current through Register Vol. 48, No. 38, September 20, 2024
The State Superintendent of Education shall develop and
administer assessment instruments and other procedures in accordance with
Section 2-3.64a-5 of the School Code [
105 ILCS
5 ]. In addition, school districts shall collaborate
with the State Superintendent in the design and implementation of special
studies.
a) Development and
Participation
1) Assessment instruments and
procedures shall meet generally accepted standards of validity and reliability
as stated in "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" (2014),
published by the American Educational Research Association, 1430 K St., N.W.,
Suite 1200, Washington, D.C. 20005. (No later amendments to or editions of
these standards are incorporated.)
2) Districts shall participate in special
studies, tryouts, and/or pilot testing of these assessment procedures and
instruments when one or more schools in the district are selected to do so by
the State Superintendent.
3) A
school shall generally be selected for participation in these special studies,
tryouts and/or pilot testing no more than once every four years, except that
participation may be required more frequently as needed to ensure sufficient
sample size for validity.
4)
All pupils enrolled in a public or State-operated elementary school,
secondary school, or cooperative or joint agreement with a governing body or
board of control, a charter school operating in compliance with the Charter
Schools Law [
105 ILCS
5 /Art. 27A]
, a school operated by a regional
office of education under Section 13A-3 of the School Code [
105 ILCS
5/13A-3]
, or a public school administered by
a local public agency or the Department of Human Services and students
receiving scholarships to attend nonpublic schools under the Invest in Kids Act
[ 35 ILCS
40 ] shall be required to participate in the State's
accountability assessments, whether by taking the regular assessment, with or
without accommodations, or by participating in the State's approved alternate
assessment (Sections 2-3.25a and 2-3.64 of the School Code). Assessments in
English/language arts and mathematics are administered annually in grades 3
through 11, and, for science, in grades 5, 8 and at least once in high school.
A) Students who are served in any locked
facility that has a State-assigned region/county/district/type/school (RCDTS)
code, and students beyond the age of compulsory attendance whose programs do
not culminate in the issuance of regular high school diplomas are not required
to participate in the State's accountability assessment. Students with an IEP
who receive an alternate diploma are required to participate in the State's
accountability assessment during years of compulsory attendance. These students
can be exempted only after participating in the State's final accountability
assessment.
B) It is the
responsibility of each district or other affected entity (e.g., nonpublic
school or special education cooperative) to ensure that all students required
to participate in the State's accountability assessment do so. (See also
Section
1.50.)
5) Each district or other affected
entity shall ensure the availability of reasonable accommodations for
participation in the State's accountability assessment by students with
disabilities, as reflected in those students' IEPs, ISPs, or plans developed
under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 USC 794) , or
limited English proficiency.
b) Assessment Procedures
1) All assessment procedures and practices
shall be based on fair testing practice, as described in "Code of Fair Testing
Practices in Education" (2004), published by the Joint Committee on Testing
Practices of the American Educational Research Association, American
Psychological Association, and National Council on Measurement in Education,
750 First Avenue, N.E., Washington D.C. 20002-4242. (No later amendments to or
editions of this code are incorporated.)
2) Districts and other affected entities
shall protect the security and confidentiality of all assessment questions and
other materials that are considered part of the State's accountability
assessments, including but not necessarily limited to test items, reading
passages, charts, graphs, and tables.
3) Districts shall promptly report to the
State Superintendent all complaints received by the district of testing
irregularities. A district shall fully investigate the validity of any
complaint and shall report to the State Superintendent the results of its
investigation.
4) Districts shall
administer the State's final accountability assessment or its approved
alternate assessment, if applicable under subsection (d), to students in grade
11. (See Section 2-3.64 of the School Code.) For the purpose of this subsection
(b)(4), "grade 11" means the point in time when a student has earned the number
of credits necessary for enrollment in grade 11, as determined by the student's
school district in accordance with Sections
1.420(b)
and 1.440 or, during any time in
which the Governor has declared a disaster due to a public health emergency,
"grade 11" means any time in grade 11 or grade 12 if the State Board of
Education has received a waiver from accountability assessments from the U.S.
Department of Education.
5)
Districts shall ensure that students who have not taken the State's final
accountability assessment at the highest grade or level assessed shall not
receive a regular high school diploma. In accordance with Section 2-3.64a-5 of
the School Code, districts, with approval from the State Board of Education,
may issue a regular high school diploma to a student who has not met this
requirement.
6) To request approval
to graduate a student who has not taken the State's final accountability
assessment, the school must submit to the State Board:
A) Explanation of why the student was not
able to be assessed on the State's final approved accountability assessment in
either grade 11 or 12, or in the commensurate final stage of a competency-based
program.
B) Justification that
granting the exemption does not represent systemic exclusion from
accountability based on gender, race, disability, English Learner status,
income or other demographic factors.
7) Schools within a district that exercise
this exemption for less than 1 percent of the graduating cohort of that school
year (i.e., all students receiving a regular diploma from that school within a
single school year) will have these exemption requests approved without
requiring additional evidence.
8)
Schools within a district that exercise this exemption for more than 1 percent
of the graduating cohort of that school year will be asked to submit additional
evidence in support of subsection (b)(6)(B) and may receive additional support,
monitoring or audits.
c)
Accommodations
Students who have been identified at the local level as
having limited proficiency in English as provided in 23 Ill. Adm. Code
228.15
(Identification of Eligible Students), including students not enrolled in
programs of bilingual education, may participate in an accommodated setting for
the State's accountability assessment, subject to the limitations set forth in
Section 2-3.64 of the School Code. A student with limited proficiency in
English shall be afforded extra time for completion of the State's
accountability assessment when, in the judgment of the student's teacher, extra
time is necessary in order for the student's performance to reflect the
student's level of achievement more accurately, provided that each test must be
completed in one session. See also Section
1.60(b) of this
Part.
d) Illinois Alternate
Assessment
The 1 percent of students with the most significant cognitive
disabilities whose IEPs identify the State's regular accountability assessment
as inappropriate for them even with accommodations shall participate in the
State's approved alternative accountability assessment, based on achievement
standards aligned to the Illinois Learning Standards, for all subjects tested.
(See also Section
1.60(c).)
e) Review and Verification of
Information
Each school district, charter school and nonpublic school
participating in the Invest in Kids Act shall have an opportunity to review
and, if necessary, correct the preliminary data generated from the
administration of the State's accountability assessment, including information
about the participating students as well as the scores achieved.
1) Within 10 business days after the
preliminary data from the accountability assessments is made available, each
district or charter school shall make any necessary corrections to its data and
then use a means prescribed by the State Board to indicate either:
A) that both its demographic and preliminary
data are correct; or
B) that it is
requesting rescoring of some or all portions of the assessment for specific
students, if available.
2) When districts request rescoring, staff of
the State Board and/or its contractor shall have an additional period of 21
days within which to work with the affected district or charter school to make
any resulting corrections.
3) At
the end of the 21-day period discussed in subsection (e)(2), all districts' and
charter schools' data shall stand as the basis for the applicable school report
cards and determination of status. Any inaccuracies that are believed to
persist at that time shall be subject to the appeal procedure set forth in
Section 1.95.
f) Reports of the State's Accountability
Assessment Results
1) Following verification
of the data under subsection (e), the State Board shall send each school and
district a report containing final information from the results of each
administration of the State's accountability assessment.
A) The scores of students who are served by
cooperatives or joint agreements, in Alternative Learning Opportunities
Programs established under Article 13B of the School Code, by regional offices
of education under Section 13A-3 of the School Code, by local agencies, or in
schools operated by the Department of Human Services, scores of students who
are served in any other program or school not operated by a school district and
who are scheduled to receive regular high school diplomas, all scores of
students who are youth in care of the State, and all scores of students who
have IEPs, shall be reported to the students' respective districts of residence
and to the schools within those districts that they would otherwise
attend.
B) The scores of students
enrolled in charter schools shall be reported to the chief administrator of the
charter school and to any school district serving as a chartering entity for
the charter school.
C) The scores
of students who were enrolled in nonpublic schools through the Invest in Kids
Act scholarship program shall be reported to the students' nonpublic schools of
record.
2) Each report
shall include, as applicable to the receiving entity:
A) results for each student to whom the State
assessment was administered (excluding any scores deemed by the State Board to
be invalid due to testing irregularities); and
B) summary data for the school and/or
district and the State, including but not limited to raw scores, scale scores,
comparison scores, including national comparisons when available, and
distributions of students' scores among the applicable proficiency
classifications (see subsection (h)).
g) Each school district and each charter
school shall receive notification from the State Board of Education as to the
status of each affected school with respect to accountability as reflected in
the final data.
h) Classification
of Scores
Each score achieved by a student on the State's regular or
alternate accountability assessment shall be classified among a set of
performance levels, as reflected in score ranges that the State Board shall
disseminate at the time of testing, for the purpose of identifying scores that
"demonstrate proficiency".
1) Each
score achieved by a student on a regular State assessment shall be classified
among categories such as "did not yet meet", "partially meets", "approaching",
"meets standards", or "exceeds standards". Among these scores, those identified
as either meeting or exceeding standards shall be considered as demonstrating
proficiency.
2) Each score achieved
by a student on the State's approved alternate accountability assessment shall
be classified among categories such as "emerging", "approaching", "at target",
or "advanced". Among these scores, those identified as "at target" or
"advanced" shall be considered as demonstrating proficiency.
i) Scores Relevant to
Accountability
For purposes of determining a school's annual summative
accountability rating, scores achieved and measures of growth calculated from
those scores on the State's accountability assessment in reading or mathematics
from students who attended the "same school within a local educational agency
for at least half of a school year" (see section 1111(c)(4)(F)(i) of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (20 USC
6301 et seq.)), shall be "relevant scores".
For schools without grades higher than 2 and 3 (that is, for schools where the
State's accountability assessment is not administered, and administered such
that student growth can be calculated for attending students), the "relevant
scores" used to determine the annual summative accountability rating shall be
current year data of students who were enrolled at the impacted school in the
nearest year to have current applicable assessment data (i.e., a
kindergarten-grade 3 school would map its 2016 grade 3 enrollments to use those
students' 2017 grade 4 growth scores; a prekindergarten-grade 2 school would
map its 2016 grade 2 enrollments to use those students' 2017 grade 3 English
language arts and math proficiency scores, and would map its 2015 grade 2
enrollments to use those students' 2017 growth scores).
