District 181 Successfully Navigates ISAT Changes

In March 2013, students in Community Consolidated School District 181 and throughout the state took the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). The ISAT is administered each spring to students in Grades 3-8 to measure their performance in reading and math; students in grades 4 and 7 are also tested in science. The District 181 Board, administration and staff were recently able to see the ISAT results for each of the District’s nine schools. Despite new challenges related to the assessment and major shifts in education throughout the country, Superintendent Dr. Renée Schuster says that District 181 students continued to demonstrate exceptional levels of achievement. “We are very proud of the hard work of our students and their effort to do their very best on the ISAT and their school work throughout the year. We value the commitment and talent of our staff and the support of our parents and community. We see how the support from all levels contributes to District 181 continuing to be among the top-most elementary districts in the state.” 

Families in District 181 received their students’ individual results on September 4; the District administration will present the grade-level and school-specific results at the Board of Education meeting on September 9, 2013 at The Lane School (7:00 p.m.).

This school year, students will take the ISAT for the last time, as the PARCC assessments will replace the ISAT in 2014-15. PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) is a consortium of states working together to develop the common set of K-12 assessments in English and math anchored in the Common Core State Standards. Common Core increases the academic rigor and depth of current state standards. In January 2013, the Illinois State Board of Education raised the performance levels, or cut scores, for the ISAT. “The new performance levels align the ISAT with the more rigorous Common Core State Standards,” Dr. Schuster explains.

District 181 has been preparing for the movement toward Common Core for the last several years. Through revisions to the curriculum, strengthened professional development and changes to materials such as textbooks and online resources, the staff of District 181 has been building a solid foundation incorporating the Common Core. Perhaps the most significant component of the District’s preparation is the Learning for All Plan (formerly called the Advanced Learning Plan), adopted in February 2013 and now in its first year of implementation.

“We recognized that the Common Core State Standards and changes to the state’s standardized testing would require a new bar for students to meet,” Dr. Schuster notes. “We have been at the ceiling for student performance in Illinois for many years. Now, with the Common Core, we have a new ceiling and a new national-level focus. The Learning for All Plan is a multi-year framework for taking our entire District to a higher academic benchmark. The Plan is a research-based commitment to follow best practices when it comes to the way we train our teachers, the way we instruct students and the way we look at data to improve learning. The 2013-14 school year will be especially exciting as we monitor the plan’s first year in action.”

The challenge of the Common Core was evident in the 2013 ISAT. Approximately 20% of the test questions were based on the Common Core and the Illinois State Board of Education applied the new cut scores. State Superintendent Christopher Koch notes, “By raising performance expectations on the ISATs, we are seeing a drop in the 2013 test scores for elementary students and schools. This does not mean that students know less or that teachers don't provide good instruction, but it does give us an earlier indication of where students perform in terms of college and career readiness.”

In fact, according to the 2012 ISAT results for the state, 79 percent of third through eighth grade students scored proficient (meets and exceeds standards) in reading and 86 percent of students scored proficient in mathematics. When using the new cut scores to analyze the ISAT data collected in spring 2012, the percentage of students in the state who would have met or exceeded standards dropped to 60 percent for both reading and mathematics. For District 181, the decrease was less than at the state level, from 98 to 90 percent in reading in 2012 and 99 to 91 percent in math in 2012. For 2013 in District 181, the decrease was 96 to 89 percent for reading and 98 to 89 in math. It is expected that the number of schools in Illinois making Adequate Yearly Progress Status (AYP) will decrease, as well, as the new cut scores mean fewer students are meeting and exceeding state standards. Statewide data for the 2013 ISAT results will be released in October.

“We are very pleased with the results and commend our students and staff for the success of the last school year. We see areas for improvement to be made and many successes we want to continue. Now, our work is focused on using the results to enhance student learning and implementing the strategies we know will continue to move us forward. We are developing more consistency and standardization where it is needed, while encouraging the craft of our teachers to make their lessons come to life.”