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Illinois Policy Institute Manager of Education Policy Hannah
Schmid said the board’s decision last month to change the metric
could confuse parents.
“If a school has high student attendance, their rating will
rise, but schools where lots of students are missing will no
longer be dinged on the school rating system,” Schmid told The
Center Square.
Schmid said parents might wonder what schools are potentially
trying to hide.
“We see that 25% of students are chronically absent, so making
this switch and no longer letting a school be dinged for these
high rates of absenteeism should concern parents, especially in
a year when we already saw the state lower the proficiency
benchmarks for students,” Schmid said.
The state board of education changed its assessment performance
levels last summer.
“The new, unified levels correct long-standing misalignment
between Illinois' state assessments and other real college and
career readiness expectations,” ISBE said in a statement.
Schmid said, even after the changes, just half the state’s
students are proficient in reading and even fewer are proficient
in math.
“So this is not the time for the state to be removing that
metric from its school ratings when it is such a problem in our
public schools,” Schmid said.
Although some parents and teachers union leaders have expressed
concerns about large class sizes in schools, high absentee rates
indicate smaller class sizes on many school days.
“When you consider how many students are actually showing up on
a daily basis, it just goes to show that students in Illinois
public schools are not being engaged effectively in a way to
ensure that they're showing up to class,” Schmid said.
Schmid said the change in attendance rating would not affect
school funding.
The Illinois Policy Institute found last year that Illinois’
education budget increased by nearly $4 billion over the last
decade, while the number of students enrolled in public schools
decreased by about 177,000 during the same period.
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