For the third year in a row, Illinois School Report Card information is riddled with so many errors that state school officials are warning that data on individual schools might not be released to parents by Nov. 1, as required by law.
Randy Dunn, interim state superintendent of education, said during a news conference Monday that schools across the state have turned in data marred with inaccuracies. Even though district officials were given time to correct the problems, hundreds have yet to do so, he said.
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Dunn said he will give schools another two weeks to work through the error-plagued 2003-04 school year data before he releases the report cards.
“We are not going to put out report cards until districts have had an ample opportunity to correct the errors,” Dunn said. “We will not rush this, only to publish inaccurate data.”
Last year, the Illinois State Board of Education produced report cards so spoiled with bad data that hundreds of schools were incorrectly labeled as failing under the federal No Child Left Behind law. An accurate accounting of school data was not published until June of this year, a full year after the tests were taken.
The annual school report card is the state’s most exhaustive analysis of school data. It includes information on test scores, district expenditures, teacher competency and time spent on each subject.
For the second year, it will tell whether schools met stringent new regulations on test scores, as well as test-participation, graduation and attendance rates required under No Child Left Behind.
The state board compiles the school and district report-card data and sends it to schools. State law requires school districts to put the information on the Internet or send paper copies home to parents by Nov. 1.
Like last year, most of the problems stemmed from erroneous identification of students’ ethnic backgrounds, income level, special-education status and English language skills. Such inaccuracies can cause problems for schools, which must meet state goals for student achievement and test participation in each subgroup.