Illinois educational reform: a thoughtful response to crisis

By TED SANDERS

TO GAIN a perspective on the likely meaning of the Illinois education reform activities of the past year one can conveniently use as a guidepost the activities of the Illinois Commission on the Improvement of Elementary and Secondary Education — the single study group that served as a clearinghouse for all issues. In that essential role, the commission took the many ideas afloat at the time and organized them in a manner that gave consideration to each within the crucible of political reality.

When the commission began its work nearly two years ago the atmosphere was charged with crisis. A national commission had already completed its task of examining the state of public education, concluding, perhaps intemperately, that "... if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." Although this wasn't the first time in our history that the state of public education had been related to a declining national security (concerns in the late 1950s had led to the passage of the National Defense Education Act), it was the first time in 30 years that the gap between public expectations and school performance had become so great as to cause wide and serious concern. The time was ripe for change, and the changes would likely come from a conviction that our schools over the years had somehow become less than accountable, our teachers less than competent, our curricula less than rigorous and that an unacceptable process of decay had set in: All needed immediate and drastic treatment.

One has to conclude that the Illinois commission came into existence at the most auspicious of times: The national commission had completed its work, as had most comparable study groups in other states; the Illinois State Board of Education had just finished a large scale study of the effectiveness and appropriateness of state mandates on schools; and other Illinois efforts, including those of Gov. James R. Thompson, House Speaker Michael J. Madigan and the Illinois Project on School Reform, were at the point of getting under way. Many years of work had either been completed or were in process; the research base to support the commission's deliberations was to be more than adequate.

The Illinois commission served a number of important purposes. First, it provided a forum in which the several groups conducting comprehensive studies could publicly debate their points of view and air their recommendations. Second, through its many "seminars," it provided the general public with a means to express its concerns. Finally, the commission made its most significant contribution by beginning the critical process of forging a political consensus on what must and could be done about education at the state level. It is this last contribution that not only assured enactment of the Educational Reform Act of 1985 but also made possible the central thrust of the legislation, which represented a significant departure from past educational initiatives in the state.

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In the remainder of this retrospective review, without in any way denigrating the importance of the other programs and financial initiatives that were approved for education in the memorable 1985 legislative session, special attention is called to those general areas in which the commission's recommendations called for a substantial alteration in the form or character of the state's relationship with local schools — for it is in these areas that one finds the likelihood of long-term and pervasive change. Such modifications were recommended and adopted in three broad and interrelated areas: (1) the quality of school programs, (2) the quality and character of public accountability and (3) quality of educational personnel.

The quality of school programs. Long before the commission's creation, State Board of Education studies conducted over several years had identified the fact that examination of the body of law governing Illinois education revealed no clear picture of what the state viewed as important in education. Schools, in the view of the board, were floundering in a sea of conflicting and often ambiguous state requirements that were "... unfair to school districts, unfair to many children, and inconsistent with the state's constitutional responsibility to provide 'high quality' education." In a well-meaning effort to insure that certain things got done in schools, the state had, over time, unwittingly placed its entire attention on what was to be taught, to whom and for what periods of time. This, according to the board, had two effects: It focused the state's interest not on what children learned, but only on what they were taught, and it acted to limit the alternatives open to schools for addressing their problems by filling up the instructional day with state-required and state-defined courses.

The Illinois Project on School Reform was in essential agreement with the board's assessment, stating that ". . . school districts need the flexibility and encouragement to adopt new and creative approaches for the most effective delivery of educational services . . ." and calling for actions from the state to liberate, rather than constrain, the creativity of local schools.

Others, even those groups that were directing their recommendations at other than state legislatures, were arriving at similar conclusions. The College Entrance Examination Board study of that period, subtitled "What Students Should Know and Be Able to Do . . . ," called for schools and colleges to place heavy emphasis on determining what students have learned in high school, rather than solely on what courses they took.

The commission, in its turn and after much debate and discussion, came to the following conclusions about the core of its concern regarding the instructional program in Illinois elementary and secondary schools.

Schools . . . were floundering in a sea
of conflicting and often ambiguous state requirements

• The state has not explicitly defined the basic purposes of elementary and secondary education in Illinois, thereby contributing to confusion regarding the state's expectations of its schools.

• The state has not explicitly defined what knowledge and skills it expects students to master as a consequence of their education.

• The state does not require schools to define learning objectives for their students, establish assessment procedures to determine the degree to which they are achieving their objectives, nor report periodically to the public on progress.

The commission concluded that these issues must be addressed, and it recommended that the state identify the primary purposes of schooling, require that school districts give priority to achieving these purposes, establish reasonable expectations in the area of student learning and require local assessment and public reporting of the degree to which students meet those expectations.

Senate Bill 730, the omnibus education reform bill, reflected these recommendations through:

• identifying the primary purposes of schooling and requiring school districts to give priority to such purposes in their allocation of resources, including funds, time, personnel and space;

• requiring the State Board of Education to identify state goals for learning in six areas (language arts, mathematics, social science, biological and physical sciences, fine arts, and physical development and health);

• requiring local school districts to develop local objectives consistent with state goals, to assess student performance in relation to those objectives regularly, and to modify their school programs as required by the results of the student performance assessment.

The significance of these changes is overwhelming. Not only has the state for the first time defined what it sees as the basic purposes of schools, but it has acted clearly to shift its attention from what our schools are doing to our youngsters to what our schools are doing for them. No longer will the state restrict its interest to what courses are given and who is required to take them; it will instead focus on what students have learned.

The quality and character of public accountability. That the commission would call for increased accountability measures was virtually a foregone conclusion. Almost without exception every national and state report had recommended increases in testing and/or public reporting by local schools. The only question left in Illinois was what form it would take.

As mentioned, the commission recommended regular assessment of student learning as one measure of accountability. It also recommended that school districts be required to inform the public about the degree to which students meet goals for learning by reporting assessment results to local communities and the state.

The General Assembly did adopt requirements corresponding to these recommendations, as well as an additional requirement for an annual "report card," conceived and recommended by Gov. Thompson, to inform the public and the state about levels of student learning.

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Choosing by statute to relate testing and public reporting to the setting of local objectives for student learning has now and for all time put on the public agenda an expectation for continuous improvement in local education. What students are to learn will be publicly discussed, the degree to which they have learned it will be publicly reported and when gaps are apparent, the changes made to close them will be public knowledge.

The implications for state-local relationships are again significant. The state will now concentrate its efforts on the process of local decisionmaking, seeing that all important parties are involved, that all important issues are addressed and that the focus will be on improving student achievement rather than on the presence or absence of certain program elements. It now requires a closed-loop of actions that inexorably forces a local decisionmaking process which leads to school improvement whenever it is needed: Schools will now set objectives, measure the effect of their programs in achieving them and make changes when necessary on a regular cycle.

Schools will now set objectives, measure the
effect of their programs in achieving them
and make changes when necessary on a regular cycle

The quality of educational personnel. It goes without saying that even a cursory look at school improvement requires attention to the singularly important role in student achievement played by teachers and principals. The commission's discussion and recommendations and the legislation flowing from them mirrored concerns of the state board and other studies over the need to improve the instructional leadership of adminstrators, the quality of teaching in schools and the quality of teachers entering the profession.

The commission found that:

• schools generally lacked administrators with the training and time to provide leadership in instructional improvement, productive home-school relationships, adequate student discipline and the evaluation of teachers;

• teachers were receiving less than adequate preservice training; their licensing requirements were not sufficiently rigorous; on-the-job evaluation procedures were inadequate; and the profession suffered from unjustifiably low salary levels.

To address these serious problems, the commission recommended that:

• the law specify the importance of the role of the principal in the improvement of instruction;

• administrators be required to demonstrate their knowledge and skill in instructional leadership, with certification as an administrator dependent on such a demonstration;

• pre service training requirements for teachers be strengthened and certification be dependent on successful passage of a test of literacy, as well as content knowledge and skill;

• staff-development programs be required in each local school district; and

• evaluation of education personnel be systematized, with training in evaluation procedures provided to those responsible for conducting such evaluations.

The legislature incorporated the thrust of all of these commission proposals in the 1985 reform legislation. The result is a dramatic new emphasis on state support and attention to improvement in the training of and the relationships between teachers and principals. Improvements in these areas are key elements in upgrading instruction and increasing student achievement.

Despite promise, an unfinished agenda. Many other changes made in Illinois education law have great potential. They range from seemingly small but significant technical adjustments, such as electronic data exchanges between the state and local school districts, to the first state requirement in 30 years addressing the important and, as we have found, extremely sensitive issue of school district organization.

In enacting this body of law, our political leaders have filled many of us with great hopes for the future of education in Illinois. As flaws appear, and they surely will, some of our hopes will be blunted. But it is also reasonable to expect that the results of other new programs, such as early childhood education, could easily exceed our most optimistic expectations.

It is still too early in the process to make safe predictions about the relative effect of various aspects of the new legislation. The programs and initiatives in the 1985 statutes have yet to be made fully operational. No child has had a full year in school under the new requirements for testing, nor has any child been in a school program altered as a consequence of first-year assessment results. That will not occur until at least 1988. No teacher has yet had the required, more intensive evaluation of his or her performance and any appropriate follow-up in-service training, nor are there any recent graduates of our training institutions who have gone through the intensified pre service and licensing requirements for teaching. These and the many other aspects of the new programs established by law will require long and sustained political and professional effort to ensure that the spirit that spawned them remains intact and to ensure that the state's attention, commitment and resources continue unabated as each and every element of reform is fully implemented.

Although the agenda of unfinished business is shorter today for educational reform, anxiety remains high over problems addressed but not solved, such as teacher compensation, and over the issues yet to be firmly addressed, such as elimination of highly specific course requirements and time allotments placed on students and schools by existing law.

Those of us who continue to believe that such problems need additional attention will return to them with new and better arguments gained from our experiences with the programs already enacted. In the meantime, we who are in the front line at the state and local levels of education will need to maintain a positive attitude toward change and the turmoil it often brings, coupled with the patience to see it through. If the recent history of Illinois is any guide, the directions that we as a state set now are likely to remain largely intact until well after the turn of the century.

Ted Sanders is state superintendent of education. He was appointed by the Illinois Board of Education, effective in January 1985.

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