Section 1.30  State Assessment

The State Superintendent of Education shall develop and administer assessment instruments and other procedures in accordance with Section 2-3.64a-5 of the School Code [105 ILCS 5].  In addition, school districts shall collaborate with the State Superintendent in the design and implementation of special studies.

a)         Development and Participation

1)         Assessment instruments and procedures shall meet generally accepted standards of validity and reliability as stated in "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" (2014), published by the American Educational Research Association, 1430 K St., N.W., Suite 1200, Washington, D.C. 20005.  (No later amendments to or editions of these standards are incorporated.)

2)         Districts shall participate in special studies, tryouts, and/or pilot testing of these assessment procedures and instruments when one or more schools in the district are selected to do so by the State Superintendent.

3)         A school shall generally be selected for participation in these special studies, tryouts and/or pilot testing no more than once every four years, except that participation may be required more frequently as needed to ensure sufficient sample size for validity.

4)         All pupils enrolled in a public or State-operated elementary school, secondary school, or cooperative or joint agreement with a governing body or board of control, a charter school operating in compliance with the Charter Schools Law [105 ILCS 5/Art. 27A], a school operated by a regional office of education under Section 13A-3 of the School Code [105 ILCS 5/13A-3], or a public school administered by a local public agency or the Department of Human Services and students receiving scholarships to attend nonpublic schools under the Invest in Kids Act [35 ILCS 40] shall be required to participate in the State's accountability assessments, whether by taking the regular assessment, with or without accommodations, or by participating in the State's approved alternate assessment (Sections 2-3.25a and 2-3.64 of the School Code).  Assessments in English/language arts and mathematics are administered annually in grades 3 through 11, and, for science, in grades 5, 8 and at least once in high school.

A)        Students who are served in any locked facility that has a State-assigned region/county/district/type/school (RCDTS) code, and students beyond the age of compulsory attendance whose programs do not culminate in the issuance of regular high school diplomas are not required to participate in the State's accountability assessment.  Students with an IEP who receive an alternate diploma are required to participate in the State's accountability assessment during years of compulsory attendance. These students can be exempted only after participating in the State's final accountability assessment.

B)        It is the responsibility of each district or other affected entity (e.g., nonpublic school or special education cooperative) to ensure that all students required to participate in the State's accountability assessment do so.  (See also Section 1.50.)

5)         Each district or other affected entity shall ensure the availability of reasonable accommodations for participation in the State's accountability assessment by students with disabilities, as reflected in those students' IEPs, ISPs, or plans developed under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 USC 794), or limited English proficiency.

b)         Assessment Procedures

1)         All assessment procedures and practices shall be based on fair testing practice, as described in "Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education" (2004), published by the Joint Committee on Testing Practices of the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and National Council on Measurement in Education, 750 First Avenue, N.E., Washington D.C. 20002-4242.  (No later amendments to or editions of this code are incorporated.)

2)         Districts and other affected entities shall protect the security and confidentiality of all assessment questions and other materials that are considered part of the State's accountability assessments, including but not necessarily limited to test items, reading passages, charts, graphs, and tables.

3)         Districts shall promptly report to the State Superintendent all complaints received by the district of testing irregularities.  A district shall fully investigate the validity of any complaint and shall report to the State Superintendent the results of its investigation.

4)         Districts shall administer the State's final accountability assessment or its approved alternate assessment, if applicable under subsection (d), to students in grade 11. (See Section 2-3.64 of the School Code.)  For the purpose of this subsection (b)(4), "grade 11" means the point in time when a student has earned the number of credits necessary for enrollment in grade 11, as determined by the student's school district in accordance with Sections 1.420(b) and 1.440 or, during any time in which the Governor has declared a disaster due to a public health emergency, "grade 11" means any time in grade 11 or grade 12 if the State Board of Education has received a waiver from accountability assessments from the U.S. Department of Education.

5)         Districts shall ensure that students who have not taken the State's final accountability assessment at the highest grade or level assessed shall not receive a regular high school diploma.  In accordance with Section 2-3.64a-5 of the School Code, districts, with approval from the State Board of Education, may issue a regular high school diploma to a student who has not met this requirement. 

6)         To request approval to graduate a student who has not taken the State's final accountability assessment, the school must submit to the State Board:

A)        Explanation of why the student was not able to be assessed on the State's final approved accountability assessment in either grade 11 or 12, or in the commensurate final stage of a competency-based program.

B)        Justification that granting the exemption does not represent systemic exclusion from accountability based on gender, race, disability, English Learner status, income or other demographic factors.

7)         Schools within a district that exercise this exemption for less than 1 percent of the graduating cohort of that school year (i.e., all students receiving a regular diploma from that school within a single school year) will have these exemption requests approved without requiring additional evidence. 

8)         Schools within a district that exercise this exemption for more than 1 percent of the graduating cohort of that school year will be asked to submit additional evidence in support of subsection (b)(6)(B) and may receive additional support, monitoring or audits.

c)         Accommodations

Students who have been identified at the local level as having limited proficiency in English as provided in 23 Ill. Adm. Code 228.15 (Identification of Eligible Students), including students not enrolled in programs of bilingual education, may participate in an accommodated setting for the State's accountability assessment, subject to the limitations set forth in Section 2-3.64 of the School Code.  A student with limited proficiency in English shall be afforded extra time for completion of the State's accountability assessment when, in the judgment of the student's teacher, extra time is necessary in order for the student's performance to reflect the student's level of achievement more accurately, provided that each test must be completed in one session.  See also Section 1.60(b) of this Part.

d)         Illinois Alternate Assessment

The 1 percent of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities whose IEPs identify the State's regular accountability assessment as inappropriate for them even with accommodations shall participate in the State's approved alternative accountability assessment, based on achievement standards aligned to the Illinois Learning Standards, for all subjects tested.  (See also Section 1.60(c).)

e)         Review and Verification of Information

Each school district, charter school and nonpublic school participating in the Invest in Kids Act shall have an opportunity to review and, if necessary, correct the preliminary data generated from the administration of the State's accountability assessment, including information about the participating students as well as the scores achieved.

1)         Within 10 business days after the preliminary data from the accountability assessments is made available, each district or charter school shall make any necessary corrections to its data and then use a means prescribed by the State Board to indicate either:

A)        that both its demographic and preliminary data are correct; or

B)        that it is requesting rescoring of some or all portions of the assessment for specific students, if available.

2)         When districts request rescoring, staff of the State Board and/or its contractor shall have an additional period of 21 days within which to work with the affected district or charter school to make any resulting corrections.

3)         At the end of the 21-day period discussed in subsection (e)(2), all districts' and charter schools' data shall stand as the basis for the applicable school report cards and determination of status.  Any inaccuracies that are believed to persist at that time shall be subject to the appeal procedure set forth in Section 1.95.

f)         Reports of the State's Accountability Assessment Results

1)         Following verification of the data under subsection (e), the State Board shall send each school and district a report containing final information from the results of each administration of the State's accountability assessment.

A)        The scores of students who are served by cooperatives or joint agreements, in Alternative Learning Opportunities Programs established under Article 13B of the School Code, by regional offices of education under Section 13A-3 of the School Code, by local agencies, or in schools operated by the Department of Human Services, scores of students who are served in any other program or school not operated by a school district and who are scheduled to receive regular high school diplomas, all scores of students who are youth in care of the State, and all scores of students who have IEPs, shall be reported to the students' respective districts of residence and to the schools within those districts that they would otherwise attend.

B)        The scores of students enrolled in charter schools shall be reported to the chief administrator of the charter school and to any school district serving as a chartering entity for the charter school.

C)        The scores of students who were enrolled in nonpublic schools through the Invest in Kids Act scholarship program shall be reported to the students' nonpublic schools of record.

2)         Each report shall include, as applicable to the receiving entity:

A)        results for each student to whom the State assessment was administered (excluding any scores deemed by the State Board to be invalid due to testing irregularities); and

B)        summary data for the school and/or district and the State, including but not limited to raw scores, scale scores, comparison scores, including national comparisons when available, and distributions of students' scores among the applicable proficiency classifications (see subsection (h)).

g)         Each school district and each charter school shall receive notification from the State Board of Education as to the status of each affected school with respect to accountability as reflected in the final data.

h)         Classification of Scores

Each score achieved by a student on the State's regular or alternate accountability assessment shall be classified among a set of performance levels, as reflected in score ranges that the State Board shall disseminate at the time of testing, for the purpose of identifying scores that "demonstrate proficiency".

1)         Each score achieved by a student on a regular State assessment shall be classified among categories such as "did not yet meet", "partially meets", "approaching", "meets standards", or "exceeds standards".  Among these scores, those identified as either meeting or exceeding standards shall be considered as demonstrating proficiency.

2)         Each score achieved by a student on the State's approved alternate accountability assessment shall be classified among categories such as "emerging", "approaching", "at target", or "advanced".  Among these scores, those identified as "at target" or "advanced" shall be considered as demonstrating proficiency.

i)          Scores Relevant to Accountability

For purposes of determining a school's annual summative accountability rating, scores achieved and measures of growth calculated from those scores on the State's accountability assessment in reading or mathematics from students who attended the "same school within a local educational agency for at least half of a school year" (see section 1111(c)(4)(F)(i) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (20 USC 6301 et seq.)), shall be "relevant scores".  For schools without grades higher than 2 and 3 (that is, for schools where the State's accountability assessment is not administered, and administered such that student growth can be calculated for attending students), the "relevant scores" used to determine the annual summative accountability rating shall be current year data of students who were enrolled at the impacted school in the nearest year to have current applicable assessment data (i.e., a kindergarten-grade 3 school would map its 2016 grade 3 enrollments to use those students' 2017 grade 4 growth scores; a prekindergarten-grade 2 school would map its 2016 grade 2 enrollments to use those students' 2017 grade 3 English language arts and math proficiency scores, and would map its 2015 grade 2 enrollments to use those students' 2017 growth scores).

(Source:  Amended at 45 Ill. Reg. 15997, effective December 1, 2021)