The Illinois State Board of Education wants to know what parents and teachers think about standardized tests in the state. ISBE launched a survey on Thursday to gather feedback on state and federally required student assessments – from the Kindergarten Individual Development Survey administered at the beginning of kindergarten to the SAT administered at the end of 11th grade. ISBE says it will use the data to improve equity, inclusivity, usefulness, and balance for state assessments.
District 117 Superintendent Steve Ptacek says he’s glad ISBE has opened up lines of communication on setting quality educational standards in the state’s school system: “I am a proponent of the core concepts of a solid academic institution’s clearly defined learning objectives and valid assessments of those learning objectives. The concept of standardized tests and the concept of standardized testing in many other states is being done very well. At this point in time, I am glad that Illinois as an entity is examining more what parents think about it because the message from schools has been very clear that the current state of Illinois standardized testing is not based upon clearly defined objectives and is not a valid assessment of what we think students need to learn. I would encourage people to give their feedback on that, and I hope that state takes that into consideration with how they are going to move forward.”
The survey is available now at www.isbe.net/assessmentfeedback. An independent consultant is conducting the survey to ensure confidentiality. All survey responses will be de-identified before they are shared with ISBE. Survey responses are due by Dec. 6. ISBE will present a Request for Sealed Proposals, guided by the feedback from the field, to the State Board in December for action in January.