STATE’S STANDARDIZED TEST GETS LOW MARKS FROM EDUCATORS
But will they meet 2025 deadline to fix it?
A coalition of teachers unions, advocates and parents’ groups are pushing a long list of changes to the standardized test Illinois elementary students take each spring.
They are motivated by a widely shared view — including by the Illinois State Board of Education — that the current test doesn’t do much for students or teachers.
Currently, two of the biggest complaints revolve around timing. The results arrive after the school year ends so teachers can’t help students with identified weaknesses before they move to the next grade.
The test, known as the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), also consumes significant classroom and instructional time. In addition to these complaints, the coalition for testing reform is fighting for greater accessibility for students with disabilities.
But the coalition is worried the state board of education will run out of time to make big changes by 2025. That’s when the contract expires for Pearson, the testing company that administers the reading and math tests for students in third to eighth grades.
The tests aren’t going away. They’re required by federal law for school accountability purposes, and even harsh critics of tests say they’re one of the only ways to measure inequities between schools.
And the stakes are heightened now. Test scores plummeted during the pandemic. In 2022, just 17.3% of third graders met grade level standards for English and Language Arts, down from nearly 40% in 2019.
Meanwhile, there’a push to make sure the state’s money is well spent. Illinois is slated to spend $28.4 million on the test this school year.
The state board’s reform attempt
Last spring, the state board of education appeared poised to enact big changes to the IAR by the 2025 deadline. The state board started this process in 2021, prompted by concerns about learning loss caused by the pandemic and how long it took to get results back.
The board and its State Assessment Review Committee had teamed up with consultants from the Center for Assessment, a New Hampshire organization dedicated to improving standardized testing. Together, these groups surveyed a group that mostly included educators, though many said they didn’t fully understand the questions and didn’t respond.
Their recommendation was to replace the spring test with three smaller tests evenly spaced throughout the year. Results of these “interim assessments” would be returned quickly, measuring student progress as they learn, rather than an end-of-the-year assessment like the current IAR. This plan would have required approval from the U.S. Department of Education.
But advocates strongly objected, saying three tests a year, even shorter tests, would make test prep an even bigger focus of class time. Samay Gheewala, deputy director of the parents’ group Illinois Families for Public Schools, said focusing on reading, writing and math, the subjects on the tests, crowds out other disciplines. “Things like science are getting shoved out of the way as ‘specials,’” Gheewala said.
In response to these objections, state Superintendent Carmen Ayala announced the state was nixing the three-tests-per-year plan. At first, Ayala pressed on, saying it was advantageous to work on improvements sooner rather than later.
“We can utilize a portion of the federal pandemic relief funding to improve our state assessment, and, as you know, these funds have
an expiration date,” she said in March.
But the state board quickly reversed course. “We will not be pursuing any changes to the IAR at this time,” Ayala said at the ISBE monthly meeting in May.
Meanwhile, Ayala in November announced plans to retire in February. A new superintendent has not been named.
What advocates want
The state is exploring options pushed by advocates, such as a quicker turnaround and score reports that are more useful for parents and educators. The state’s test review committee is also considering moving to adaptive tests, where students who make mistakes will be assigned easier questions and advanced students get increasingly difficult questions.
But the coalition is concerned the board is moving too slowly. It has more detailed plans ready for the board’s consideration.
For example, the score reports they want wouldn’t just report data — they would present suggestions for improving individual teachers’ teaching and individual students’ learning. This feels particularly urgent given the pandemic learning losses.
Paul Zavitkovsky, a member of the coalition pushing for test changes who teaches at the University of Illinois Chicago, says the current report is inscrutable to most teachers and parents.
“For most people who don’t wade around in this stuff every day there’s no reason why people would really understand what those numbers mean,” he said.
Advocates also say they’re working with the state on developing adaptive design, but some want additional resources to ensure accurate results for students with disabilities.
Bev Johns of the Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois wants more school staff members trained in both testing and disability so they can meet one on one with special-needs students prior to testing. The goal is to have enough staff to request test materials and accommodations that match the needs of each student.
But Johns says some students need additional accommodations that test designers may not have anticipated.
Unique requests, like having a familiar voice read the questions, have to be submitted and approved by the state board of education. Currently, many districts are short on special education staff, so ordering or requesting materials that suit the unique testing needs of each student would be a heavy lift.