State Investigation into Testing Irregularities Proceeds As Expected

Letter from ISBE Acknowledges Highly Discrepant Results at Charter Oak Primary School
PEORIA May 15, 2014 The Illinois State Board of Educations response to the ISAT test irregularities
at Charter Oak Primary School, received by Peoria Public Schools on Wednesday, validated the Districts
concern as self-reported to the State in January. While the District does wish that ISBEs response had
been clearer, the letter does not say that there was no wrongdoing by the employees who were
involved or that the District had no basis to report the information it found.
To the contrary, ISBE explicitly recognized that the results of [ISAT test] administrations over several
years have yielded highly discrepant results for a select group of students. In other words, ISBE agrees
that the data reflect significant test irregularities.
That fact is obvious when you have students who we know cant read dolch sight words, who are
meeting and exceeding standards on ISAT reading tests at Charter Oak, only to have those scores
nosedive when they leave Charter Oak, said Interim District Testing Director Tim Delinski. However
perhaps because it had no way to suppress prior test scores anywayISBE made no finding as to the
cause for such highly discrepant results.
ISBEs response only states what it did not find: There is no evidence the answer documents of these
students have been manipulated or tampered with in any way. But that was never the issue. As
indicated in the Districts self-report, this was never a case of teachers who erased and corrected
student test scores. It was a case about teachers admittedly giving accommodations during the
administration of the tests that were not reflected on the Individualized Education Plan (IEP)and the
principals failure to train and monitor those teachersthat resulted in what initially triggered the
internal investigation, which was students scoring at levels that defied logic and probability.
With respect to ISBEs stated next step, it appears they have closed the case within its Division of
Student Assessment and has provided the Districts report to its Educator Licensure Division. That
Division would be tasked with determining what, if any, action should be taken to suspend or revoke the
teaching licenses of the employees involved here. That step was not at our request, and the District
takes no position on any decision that ISBE may make regarding our employees and former employees
teaching licenses. ISBEs licensure suspension and revocation procedures are distinct from and have no
bearing on the Boards authority to discipline its employees.
We are pleased the States review is complete and that no additional discrepancies were found at
Charter Oak, Said District 150 Superintendent Dr. Grenita Lathan. The investigation proceeded just as
outlined in the Illinois State Board of Educations testing protocol. Our report to the State indicated
several concerns surrounding test administration. Our Board of Education took the necessary measures
to address those concerns. We believe they took the investigation one step further for one of the four
years we reported, by looking for erasure marks on archived student testing documents. While that was
never part of our Districts original report, we are relieved that those results were inconclusive. Peoria
Public Schools will continue to follow the testing and administration policies provided by the State of
Illinois, which includes self-reporting of irregularities when they are discovered.