Prairie State Wire

Illinois State Board of Education Assessment and Accountability Technical Advisory Committee met Sept. 3-4.

Here is the agenda provided by the committee:

Day 1: September 3 (Wednesday): 8:30 CDT to 3:45 CDT

1. TAC minutes approval and ISBE Updates (15 min)

Materials:

1.1 September TAC agenda (this document)

1.2 Notes from June TAC meeting

2. How ISBE Framed the Unified Standard Setting (30 min)

Description: We will watch a video together that provides a view into how ISBE framed the unified standard setting and its outcomes. It shows the practical and political context for the standard-setting process.

Materials: Right-Sizing Illinois' Proficiency Benchmarks - YouTube

We will hold off on deeper discussion until after the presentations on the debrief of the standard setting and the samples to success. However, keep the goals of the unified standard setting in mind during the three session slots allocated to standard setting:

G1: Greater coherence in the meaning of achievement labels across grades and content areas.

G2: A better understanding among school leaders, teachers, and students concerning the meaning of achievement levels.

G3: A better understanding among school leaders, teachers, and students of how performance level descriptors (PLD) relate to and reflect post-secondary expectations and other “on track” benchmarks.

G4: An increase in supported use cases for state tests and a decrease in questionable or harmful test uses.

3. Debrief on Unified Standard Setting (1 hr 15 min)

Description: Pearson and ACT will report back on the unified standard setting with an eye towards the next steps of the work. Will will comment on his observations of the standard setting meeting.

Materials:

3.1 Slides (Pearson and ACT)

3.2 Will Memo on Standard Setting Observations (optional pre-read)

Break

4. Samples to Success (45 min)

Description: ISBE will present a systematic review of the sample item types (“Samples to Success”) that they had created to illustrate the new performance standards. In parallel, items from operational assessments were used as part of the unified standard-setting process. The goal of the conversation is to determine how to leverage this resource to help stakeholders make better use of the assessment and accountability system for different use cases.

Materials:

TBD

Questions:

1. What are most promising use cases for the Samples to Success?

2. What studies or analyses are needed that would support these use cases?

5. Individual Student Reports (ISR) (30 min)

Description: ISBE will walk through a current individual student report and would like TAC feedback on the design of this report, with a particular eye towards user-friendliness and accessibility for all, clarity and comprehensibility of information, as well as incentivization of actions that produce equitable outcomes for diverse stakeholder populations.

Questions:

1. Are we presenting this information in a way that families will be able to understand? Is it focused - that is, does it include information that could detract from its primary purposes?

2. Equity lens

A. Is it responsive to families from diverse backgrounds? What would an equity lens on this report imply about how it should be designed? What process should be implemented to inform its design?

B. How can the reports better incentivize actions that produce equitable outcomes for diverse stakeholder populations?

Lunch

6. Education Recovery Scorecard Analyses [CLOSED SESSION] (1 hr 30 min) Description: Pearson will present additional analyses to investigate potential root causes of the unusual score gains in ELA grades 6-8 observed during the spring 2025 administration.

Materials:

TBD

Questions:

TBD

Break (15 min)

7. Technical Reporting Discussion (45 min)

Description:

We recognize that the technical report's current structure does not meet the needs of all users of technical information. What is the best way to meet those needs? Is it through a restructuring of the technical report? If so, how? If not, how else?

We will review some select samples of information currently being provided to these audiences in the ISBE portal as a jumpstart to this discussion.

Materials:

Right-Sizing-Benchmarks-for-Families.pdf [Example]

Questions:

How can ISBE best identify and meet the technical information needs of various audiences?

Public Comment (15 min)

Center, ISBE

3:45 Adjourn

Day 2: September 4 (Thursday): 8:30 CDT to 11:30 CDT

8. Custom Accountability Reports (1 hr 30 minutes)

Description: ISBE will present their current mockups and vision for custom accountability reports that are designed to encourage stakeholders to engage more meaningfully with the accountability data. Following this, the Center will present on different statistical approaches that could be used for identifying schools with similar profiles and/or characteristics. One possible application could be the custom accountability reports, but other use cases will be discussed.

Materials:

8.1 Mockups and vision for custom accountability reports

8.2 Options for clustering analyses (including AI-supported approaches)

8.3 Technical memo: Possible Approaches for Clustering in IL (tech memo).pdf

Questions:

1. What are methodological suggestions that can best support ISBE’s vision for the custom accountability reports?

2. What are promising analytic methods in the literature that could be leveraged, either in support of the reports or in parallel, to better understand similarities and differences in school performance across the state using all available data?

Break (15 min)

9. Accountability System - Design Discussion (1 hr)

Description: ISBE to give a brief update on how IBAM's/ISBE's thinking has evolved in connection with exploring new measures of student outcomes and learning opportunities. ISBE is interested in recognizing different ways in which schools excel based on information that does not necessarily make good ESSA indicators. These indicators would not necessarily be included in systems for school designations. Center to provide examples of what other states are doing in this space.

Materials:

9.1 Slide deck with examples from different states

Questions:

1. How should the state decide what indicators to incorporate, how to report on and combine them, and how to use this information for decision making?

2. What process should the state implement to design a supplemental indicator system?

Public Comment (15 min)

11:30 Adjourn

https://www.isbe.net/Documents_TAC/20250903-Agenda.pdf