To: Illinois State Board of Education From: Illinois P-20 Council Re: ESSA Recommendations Date: January 18, 2017

OVERVIEW The Illinois P-20 Council was established by the legislature in 2009 to foster collaboration among state agencies, education institutions, local schools, community groups, employers, taxpayers, and families, and to collectively identify needed reforms to develop a seamless and sustainable statewide system of quality education and support. In service of this goal, the Council and its committees convened 18 times from September 2016 to January of 2017 to provide the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) substantive input on the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan. The overall result of committee meetings is included here, comprised of a set of recommendations, key points of discussion and open questions for ISBE to consider as it develops the best ESSA plan for the state. The P-20 Council convened both as a full group and also engaged three of its committees below. The Early Learning Council also met to develop ESSA recommendations in coordination with the P-20 Council. Under the leadership of Dr. Beth Purvis, the Councils were asked to provide recommendations to ISBE, identify points of tension or complexities in specific areas of the work and share plans for future engagement. Full reports with more details from the three committees and Early Learning Council can be found in the Appendix.

P-20 Committee or Partner Council Co-Chairs

College and Career Readiness (CCR) John Rico and Elizabeth Swanson

Data, Assessment and Accountability (DAA) Dea Meyer and Robin Steans

Early Learning Council (ELC) Phyllis Glink and Beth Purvis

Teacher and Leader Effectiveness (TLE) Erika Hunt and Audrey Soglin

Mission of the P-20 Council The mission of the Illinois P-20 Council is to deliberate and make recommendations to the Governor, Illinois General Assembly and state agencies for developing a seamless and sustainable statewide system of quality education and support, from birth through adulthood, to maximize students’ educational attainment, opportunities for success in the workforce and contributions to their local communities.

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P-20 GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR ILLINOIS ESSA PLAN

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POINTS OF INTEGRATION

Over the course of the P-20 Council’s engagement, there was significant coordination and integration both across and within committees. In addition to cross-committee membership between the TLE and DAA as well as the DAA and CCR committees, key Early Learning Council members were also placed on the TLE and DAA committees. The P-20 Council’s Coordinating Committee (made up of committee co-chairs) met on September 12, November 17 and December 12 to ensure coordination across the work of the three P-20 committees and the Early Learning Council. While each group pursued a mission-aligned agenda, there was strategic alignment in recommendations, examples below: DAA and ELC support the following recommendations (Section 3): ISBE should include chronic absenteeism as one component of performance metrics ISBE should include an early grades indicator in performance metrics DAA and CCR support the following recommendations (Section 3): ISBE should incorporate a multi-faceted measure to capture college and career readiness ISBE should consider incorporating science achievement as a component of growth ELC and TLE support the following recommendation (Section 4): ISBE should include early learning in the professional development alignment and the annual

professional development audit

APPROACH Timeline

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Process Each P-20 committee engaged in a multi-pronged approach to surface its recommendations. Dr. Jason Helfer from ISBE joined the initial TLE and DAA committee meetings to frame the work ahead and request specific areas of input. Each committee developed a calendar and working objectives in alignment with their charge. Committee work included whole group meetings, subcommittee meetings, webinars and deep dives into specific content and areas for recommendation. Each committee engaged in an iterative process that allowed for critical refinement on the part of its large group of stakeholders. Figure 1.1 Committees’ Approach

Through the engagement process, committees reviewed research from statewide and national experts to refine their work. Local experts included members of the Latino Policy Forum, Illinois Board of Higher Education, Illinois Community College Board and the Illinois Educational Research Council (IERC). Committee members also reviewed many national ESSA reports. Facilitation Support Education First, a national education policy and strategy consulting firm, supported engagement, development and refinement of the Council’s recommendations. The Education First team, Dr. John Luczak, Dr. Thalia Nawi, Kevin Duff and Cristina Munoz, supported coordination and oversight to the full P-20 Council as well as for the Teacher and Leader Effectiveness committee and the Data, Assessment and Accountability committee. Support included research on specific areas of engagement for committees, coordination and facilitation of meetings (including committee and virtual meetings), synthesis and refinement of committee process and recommendations, research on relevant topics, coordination with senior leadership at ISBE and with the Illinois Secretary of Education. Coordination across committees was another facet of this work as the team aligned recommendations and areas for exploration across and among various stakeholder groups. Many thanks to Elliot Regenstein for his leadership and collaboration of the Early Learning Council, and to Jon Furr for leadership and collaboration of the College and Career Readiness Committee.

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Dr. Janet Holt, Executive Director of the IERC and P-20 Council Coordinator, and Pam Reilly, president of Illinois State Teachers of the Year, provided ongoing and dynamic coordination, thought partnership and support throughout the engagement. Dr. Holt drafted the P-20 Guiding Principles noted above.

Memo Structure This memo is designed to provide an overview of key recommendations from the P-20 Council and Early Learning Council in areas aligned with the first draft ESSA plan provided for public comment: (1) articulating specific recommendations for ISBE in alignment with the draft ESSA plan, (2) illuminating areas of complexity that may warrant deeper discussion and exploration and (3) identifying areas for further exploration. Each P-20 committee and the Early Learning Council has provided a detailed letter in the Appendices that includes specific recommendations, additional resources and detailed discussion points for ISBE to consider as it refines the next iteration of the Illinois ESSA plan.

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RECOMMENDATIONS The following pages include a summary of recommendations that emerged from the P-20 committees and the Early Learning Council. In response to specific requests from ISBE, each group provided recommendations corresponding to ISBE ESSA draft plan Sections 3, 4 and 5. Section 3: Accountability, Support and Improvement for Schools The Data, Assessment and Accountability Committee (DAA) was guided by the following approach regarding systemic accountability and the role it plays in system improvement: Aligned: The system should be aligned to the overall vision and goals for education in the state, and

incentives, recognitions, supports and interventions should also be clearly aligned to results. Clear: Parents, community members and educators should be able to quickly understand the

performance of students in their school without having to learn a new system each year. The system should be transparent and reflect the real performance of schools.

Fair: To be fair, any accountability system must rely on measures that do not simply reflect the socio-economics and demographics of a particular community, but instead reflect the impact on and progress of students.

Student-centered: The system should consider how each action improves student outcomes. Improvement strategies should be appropriate for the context of the school and district.

Actionable: Educators and policymakers should have easy access to detailed information that can inform school support and improvement efforts. The state must have transparent, consistent and evidence-based mechanisms to intervene in persistently poor-performing schools and districts, when appropriate.

Comprehensive: Balance the use of achievement, growth, subgroup performance and other indicators of student success to ensure stakeholders have a complete view of performance. Put another way, the system should use multiple measures that encourage instruction supporting the whole child.

Accountability is more than a system to evaluate schools: The purpose of the system is (1) to allow the public to understand how well their schools are working, and (2) to provide information to the community, educators and policymakers on the supports and interventions that are needed to make the schools and LEAs more effective and to enable them to continually improve all students’ educational opportunities. The outcome of an accountability system is not to penalize low performance, but to determine how to best bring about positive and sustainable improvement for students. At the heart of this system is the core belief that the focus should be on students – whether they are improving and learning the necessary skills to graduate and proceed to college and/or enter the workforce. The DAA committee recognizes the complexity of having a balanced accountability system that addresses all students’ needs. During its discussions, the committee identified some consistent issues where it struggled to find the right balance between competing priorities or concerns. The committee’s report, found in Appendix B, describes seven of these “tensions” in detail:

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System Objective: Punitive accountability system vs. supportive accountability system

The state must balance the goal of supporting schools while ensuring students do not continue to lose ground.

Indicators Priorities: Academic indicators vs. school quality indicators

The accountability system needs to balance the impact of a school’s primary objective—academic growth and achievement—with broader measures of school quality that are connected to academic success.

Demonstrating Progress: Achievement indicators vs. growth indicators

The accountability system needs to balance the importance of meeting high, statewide achievement goals with progressing toward those goals, acknowledging that not all students enter school in the same place academically.

New Indicators: Focus on broad aspects of schooling vs. technical ability to measure them The state may wish to add a number of new indicators that may better identify struggling

schools, yet research-tested measures and reliable data for those indicators might not be available at this time.

Poverty Correlation: Desire to gain a new view into schooling vs. including additional measures that correlate with student poverty

The state should take advantage of ESSA’s flexibility to add insightful and salient indicators while avoiding measures that simply reflect the demographics of the school.

Clear Context: Adding many measures vs. maintaining a simple, understandable system The accountability system should include a complete view of schools while finding a

manageable number of indicators that clearly communicate performance and reliably identify struggling schools.

Improvement Capacity: Identifying every school that needs any kind of support vs. state and local capacity to deliver tailored support

A robust set of indicators may identify more schools for support and interventions than the state can effectively help, requiring the state to prioritize schools that need help the most while ensuring all schools get the assistance they need.

The following recommendations reflect the responses from the DAA committee, the CCR committee and the Early Learning Council to ISBE’s draft ESSA plan.

3.1 Accountability System ISBE requests feedback on which student growth model may make the most sense to include as

part of the accountability system in Illinois. Which model of weighting makes sense for Illinois (e.g., 51/49%, 60/40%, 70/30%) and will best

provide the information schools require in order to identify and obtain supports when necessary?

ISBE requests feedback on the proposed approach to interim goals. ISBE requests feedback on the meaningful differentiation of schools.

3.2 Identification of Schools ISBE requests feedback on its plan to identify schools for comprehensive services and exit

criteria. ISBE requests feedback on its plan to identify schools for targeted services and exit criteria.

3.3 State Support and Improvement for Low‐performing Schools. ISBE requests feedback on its statewide system of support for low performing schools.

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Recommendation Rationale and Key Points of Discussion 3

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3.1

3.1

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ISBE should ensure that the state’s accountability system is clear, aligned, fair, student-centered, actionable and comprehensive.

ISBE should adhere to the guiding principles of the Data, Assessment and Accountability Committee. Please see Appendix B for specifics.

ISBE should adopt the P-20 Council’s goal: Illinois aims to have 60 percent of its residents earn high-quality degrees and career credentials by 2025.

Adopting the P-20 Council’s goals will better align the efforts of educators and stakeholders. As part of this, ISBE should establish interim goals for the College and Career Readiness Framework.

ISBE should use a broad yet limited range of school quality indicators, including additional curricular options like science/STEM, the arts, early learning, early warning, surveys, absenteeism, secondary-to-post secondary transitions and a multi-faceted measure of college and career readiness.

The accountability system will benefit from the comprehensive view of school quality that a broad array of indicators provides. Each indicator area has significant policy and implementation considerations that require further exploration, including alignment with provisions within HB 5729 (the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act). Please see Appendix A for specifics.

ISBE should use a balanced growth indicator in all grades, including high school.

A growth indicator should balance high expectations for students and the context within which students and schools are operating. Measuring growth at the high school level provides valuable insight into performance. Administering another high school assessment is the most accurate way to achieve this.

3.2

ISBE should include additional reporting on school and district funding, including how that funding relates to student/school outcomes and what the gap may be between a reasonable targeted level of per pupil funding versus actual funding.

Underfunding can affect student performance. However, it should not be an indicator in the accountability system. Funding data provides important context for performance and can help drive targeted support.

3.3

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ISBE should consider a wide range of data points and the Illinois Balanced Accountability Model (IBAM) quality framework to conduct needs assessments of schools identified by the accountability system.

Once the accountability system identifies a school as needing support, ISBE should collect and report information beyond the accountability indicators to drive the school’s improvement plan. The additional data (which can include data already collected) will help educators and stakeholders put the accountability results in context.

ISBE should put in place the capacity and/or systems necessary to help struggling schools develop and then implement substantive and tailored improvement plans, based on needs assessment and disaggregated data, that span P-12 and postsecondary and career transitions.

ISBE should ensure schools get the individualized support they need. This could involve securing outside expertise, developing local and state capacity, leveraging peer-to-peer learning, and/or arranging for teacher leaders to help create and implement improvement plans.

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Areas that require further exploration ISBE’s proposed College and Career Readiness Framework

Revise to ensure that it sufficiently emphasizes the career component, includes adequate rigor to truly measure college readiness and is intentionally aligned to HB 5729 (the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act). Please see Appendix A for specifics.

Assessment

How can we ensure stability in the assessment system? How can we get assessment data back to educators and help them use it? Should there be an assessment in high school to enable the state to measure high school growth?

School identification

What types of schools, beyond the bottom five percent, need support? How should ISBE identify schools for targeted subgroup support?

Financial resources

What should the state’s target per-pupil expenditure be for schools? What sort of trends and patterns should be identified in funding data provided to stakeholders?

Support and interventions

What are the most effective supports and interventions for schools, depending on their specific need? How should ISBE define “evidence-based” supports and interventions?

Feedback processes

How should the public give feedback on the accountability system, and how should the system adjust?

Peer-to-peer learning

How can we identify schools that are doing an exemplary job and hold them up as models? How can we create a system where peer LEAs can find and support each other?

Section 4: Supporting Excellent Educators In order to achieve the goal set by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) that every student will be supported by highly prepared and effective teachers and school leaders, the Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Committee (TLE) reviewed ISBE’s ESSA draft plan Section 4. The TLE committee split into teacher preparation innovation and professional development/leadership subcommittees to best conduct its work. They developed suggestions for rigorous Title II guidance, a school leadership pilot project and a teacher residency competitive grant program. Please see Appendix D for further detail.

4.1 Systems of Educator Development, Retention, and Advancement ISBE requests feedback on its statewide system of support for all schools.

4.2 Support for Educators ISBE requests feedback on its proposed use of Title II funds.

4.3 Educator Equity ISBE requests feedback on the plan for Equitable Distribution of Teachers

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Recommendation Rationale and Key Points of Discussion 4

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ISBE should develop clear and rigorous guidance for professional development that is connected to LEA subgrants.

Guidance developed for Title II funded PD can be elevated to PD more broadly across the state.

ISBE should include early learning in the professional development alignment and the annual professional development audit.

Professional development that is specific to early learning is requisite to high-quality early childhood instruction.

4.2

ISBE should develop a system that supports transparent reporting of Title II fund use.

Clarifying the ways in which LEAs spend Title II funds will allow ISBE to share effective uses of funding and provide more relevant guidance for funds use.

ISBE should ensure that subgrant-funded professional development meets ESSA requirements and additional standards of equity and quality.

In addition to the rigorous Federal Definition of Professional Development, Illinois can raise the bar for how Title II funds are spent. ISBE should require that PD is: Teacher led, administrator embedded, supports at-risk or subgroup populations, coordinated with teacher evaluation and student data for LEA planning and focused on key grade transitions (including preK-K transition).

ISBE should establish a definition of “school leader” to include: Principals, assistant principals, teacher leaders, and when appropriate, LEA leaders. With that definition, ISBE shall encourage LEAs to understand school leadership as including multiple roles.

It is imperative to develop and communicate a common definition of school leadership. ISBE should encourage continuous improvement of professional learning focused on improvements to school and student outcomes.

ISBE should reserve up to three percent of LEA subgrant funding to support state-level activities that improve principal, assistant principal, and teacher leaders’ instructional leadership skills.

ISBE can elevate existing examples of innovation and develop standards for high-quality leadership programs (building on existing standards from PSEL, NSDC, Learning Forward, IL Performance Standards for School Leaders, and Teacher Leader Model Standards).

ISBE should leverage state set-aside funding to introduce a pilot program to seed more innovative approaches to supporting school leadership.

The committee recommends ISBE build pilot program guidelines around seven research-based elements of quality professional learning systems. See Appendix D for more details on those seven elements and sample teacher leader roles.

ISBE should manage a competitive grant process to braid together state set-asides and LEA funds to support “instructional leadership residencies” (ILR).

The ILR model must be focused on LEA needs. The competitive grant process allows LEAs (or in some cases, a set of schools) to take a best practice model of a long clinical experience, paired with the support of a master teacher, to meet human capital needs within an LEA or set of schools.

As the state agency considers grant applications, ISBE should consider documentation of school-provider partnerships, LEA commitments, resident

An ILR model links teacher residencies, teacher leadership, and school administrator preparation in a clinically rich, locally sensitive LEA-EPP

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Recommendation Rationale and Key Points of Discussion

commitments and a strong evaluation process during the grant applications process.

partnership to build instructional capacity in high need areas/fields.

LEAs should be encouraged to work with and provide resources to support local and regional collaborations, such as those funded through AOK Network, the state’s preschool expansion grant and the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program.

These (and other) early childhood collaborations work to improve quality of care so that children are prepared for school and success.

4.3

Educator Equity Please refer to Appendix D for specific alignment and recommendations related to the state’s plan for Equitable Distribution of Teachers.

Areas that require further exploration Title II flexibilities support ISBE’s role in connecting LEAs who are interested in taking innovative

approaches to differentiated and personalized PD. There is an opportunity to support existing exploration of the role of micro-credentialing and quality

controls (ISBE should coordinate with the Illinois Community College Board and Illinois Board of Higher Education’s work on this topic).

The school leadership pilot program is only one avenue to seed innovation. There is an opportunity to build a network or cohort of LEAs who can serve as a model of implementing innovative approaches. Elevating successful implementation can help scale successful models across Illinois.

ISBE has the opportunity to build on many examples of high-quality residency models. The competitive grant process can emphasize the importance of building strong relationships between residencies and LEAs and how it can result in a strengthened teacher pipeline.

Section 5: Supporting All Students ESSA provides a clear opportunity for ISBE to strengthen ties among organizations supporting students and families at key stages of development. Attention towards key transition points is critical in order to maintain supports and ensure continuity of programmatic and systemic interventions. In particular, the Early Learning Council identified: (1) capitalizing on community and family strengths to support the entire learning community; (2) focusing resources on the communities with the greatest need, taking a holistic and equity-based approach to determining need; and (3) incentivizing collaboration among all Illinois state-sponsored programs as key components and philosophies that should undergird policy and guide action. What follows is a partial set of recommendations from the Early Learning Council. Please refer to Appendix C for additional detail.

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5.1 Well‐rounded and Supportive Education for Students

5.2 Program‐specific Requirements

Recommendation Rationale and Key Points of Discussion

5.1

ISBE should put a greater emphasis on the implementation of best practices in transitioning children from stage to stage.

This includes transitions from birth to three services into preschool and Head Start programs, and then from these programs and services into kindergarten.

ISBE should require1 LEAs to create transition plans in collaboration with community stakeholders that create shared understanding between early childhood programs, schools, administrators and families of what children should experience between early childhood programs and schools and between kindergarten, first grade and second grade.

These should be thoughtful and inclusive of providers, parents, school leaders and early learning community leaders.

5.2

Please see Appendix C for ELC recommendations.

Areas that require further exploration Comprehensively addressing issues related to data collection and reporting, identification of

homeless children, training for McKinney-Vento liaisons and other staff, cross-divisional collaboration and transportation.

CONCLUSION The Illinois P-20 Council is committed to supporting ISBE in developing a strong ESSA plan designed to support all students in Illinois. The work included here represents the outcomes of an intense four-month engagement by the three P-20 committees and the Early Learning Council. The groups recognize that there is significant opportunity for continuous engagement as the work moves from design to implementation and plan to stay engaged. Through this process the Illinois P-20 Council has brought an exceptional level of engagement, commitment, and passion to their recommendations. The Appendices, letters and memos from each committee, represent significant time, energy and research. The committee co-chairs navigated complex educational, technical and political issues in order to provide these balanced recommendations to ISBE and are committed to successful implementation.

APPENDICES Please find the three P-20 committee and Early Learning Council documents linked below:

A. College and Career Readiness B. Data, Assessment and Accountability C. Early Learning Council D. Teacher and Leader Effectiveness

1 The Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) does not endorse this being required.