ESSA Implementation, Illinois, and Student Outcome Requirements
February 13, 2019
Elliot Regenstein, Ben Boer, and Paul Zavitkovsky take a look at the implementation of ESSA’s student outcome requirements in Illinois. The state’s Board of Education “has set a goal of having 90 percent of students achieve proficiency on state standardized tests.” And Although ESSA “was intended to usher in a new age of accountability, the board’s approach ignores one of the main lessons of the No Child Left Behind era (2002-15): Don’t set goals that schools have no chance of meeting, because schools will (appropriately) not take those goals seriously.” Moreover, the board’s “goals continue to focus solely on proficiency, which is inconsistent with the state’s accountability system and with the emerging best practice in state measurement of school quality.”