SJ0064 94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

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SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, United States Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, has announced a New Path for the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 by way of a set of common sense principles to guide states in meeting the Act's goals; this New Path equation includes the primary elements of the Act, such as the annual testing and reporting of subgroup data, but also includes increasing student achievement, narrowing the achievement gap, and overall state education policies that ensure that progress is being made; and

WHEREAS, The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 recognizes that schools serving certain designated subgroups, such as children who are limited English speakers and children who have disabilities, require flexibility in determining annual yearly progress; recent educational research indicates that this type of flexibility is also needed for schools that serve other vulnerable population groups, such as high school drop-outs who return to school and who, due to low academic achievement levels, are often confronted with multiple barriers that impede their progress; and

WHEREAS, One of the flexible approaches that states have requested is the use of growth-based accountability models, which show promise as fair, reliable, and innovative methods for measuring school and student improvement; growth-based accountability models give schools credit for student improvement over time by tracking individual student achievement from year to year; and

WHEREAS, The United States Department of Education has developed a new pilot program in order to rigorously evaluate growth-based accountability models and their ability to meet the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and to share the results with other states; as part of this pilot program, states may propose a growth-based accountability model for use in determining annual yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 for alternative schools and charter schools whose primary student populations are high school drop-outs and members of other vulnerable student population groups; and

WHEREAS, In order to be approved for participation in the program, a model must have the following core requirements: (i) ensure that all students are proficient by 2014 and set annual goals to ensure that the achievement gap is closing for all groups of students, (ii) set expectations for annual achievement based upon meeting grade-level proficiency, not based on student background or school characteristics, (iii) hold schools accountable for student achievement in reading, language arts, and mathematics, (iv) ensure that all students in tested grades are included in the assessment and accountability system, hold schools and districts accountable for the performance of each student subgroup, and include all schools and districts, (v) include an assessment system in each of grades 3 through 8 and high school in reading and language arts and mathematics, which must have been operational for more than one year, that must receive approval through the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 peer review process for the 2005-2006 school year and that must produce comparable results from grade to grade and from year to year, (vi) track student progress as part of the state data system, and (vii) include student participation rates and student achievement on a separate academic indicator in the state accountability system; and

WHEREAS, The United States Department of Education will approve no more than 10 high-quality growth models in this pilot program for 2005-2006, and states that wish to apply and meet the core requirements must submit their proposals to the Department by February 17, 2006; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONCURRING HEREIN, that we urge the State Board of Education to apply for participation in the growth-based accountability pilot program established by the U.S. Department of Education; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge the United States Department of Education to use more flexible criteria in determining adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be delivered to the U.S. Secretary of Education, the State Board of Education, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate, and to each member of the Illinois Congressional delegation.