ED, school report cards late but should be arriving soon

Riverside/Brookfield Landmark (Bob Uphues):

Anyone wondering just how their local school fared on the 2006 school report card will have to wait at least a few more weeks. While school officials have been provided with test results for individual students in the form of large, unwieldy spreadsheets, report cards, featuring demographic data and information on whether schools met adequate yearly progress (AYP) according to standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, won't be available to the general public until March 6 at the earliest.

However, a spokesperson at the Illinois State Board of Education said last week that schools and parents should be receiving copies of the school report cards prior to that March 6 date, and final results should be in that hands of ISBE officials within the next two weeks.

The ISBE claimed the delay was caused by needing to re-score the Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE). But the article doesn't really explain why it needed to be rescored.

A few years ago I covered an education meeting and one of the gripes of local superintendents was the error rate in the ISBE processing teacher credentials. Maybe Sen. Kimberly Lightford will be able to improve the accuracy of the ISBE if she's appointed the state superintendent of education.