When the new Illinois Learning Standards were introduced in the summer of 1997, school districts statewide were given a clear idea of what students should be learning in a number of academic areas. Since then, school districts in Orland Park and Tinley Park have put a great deal of time, effort and thought into aligning their curriculums with the new standards.
“We’re doing it primarily to ensure that the children who attend our schools come away with competencies in all learning areas,” said Carolyn Lane, assistant superintendent for program and staff development with Community Consolidated School District 146 in Tinley Park, which consists of one middle and five elementary schools. “We want students to be well-rounded and have deep understanding of the important knowledge all children should have.”
Accompanying the new standards has been the introduction of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, or ISAT, Lane said.
“That test, in theory, measures the degree to which students are successful in achieving the learning standards,” she said. “In the past, we’ve had tests that weren’t aligned to standards. Now, with the ISATs, we have an instrument that . . . provides us with a real indicator of how our students are doing in relation to the standards.”
The ISATs assessing student competencies in math and science were administered for the first time last year, and the scores across the state were not what academicians had hoped, Lane said. But the scores did provide a baseline indicating how much schools need to improve.
“I believe what the lower scores showed us is that we’ve raised the standards,” she said.
Responding to those new standards has required intensive effort on the part of local school districts. In District 146, Lane said, the first step was aligning district standards, which had been developed in 1995 and 1996, with the new state standards. The next step was to begin to develop a curriculum framework based on those standards.
“We have built an Intranet system, and within that, one of the elements is the district curriculum,” Lane said. “Let’s say you’re teaching 2nd grade and want to address one of the learning standards. You can go in and use the curriculum guide to know what the standards and benchmarks are, and therefore, what areas should be your focus for the coming academic year.”
District 146 has completed aligning the language arts curriculum with state standards, and work on aligning the social studies curriculum with those standards is slated to be complete by the end of the school year, with math, science and technology the focus for next year.
In Kirby School District 140, which encompasses six prekindergarten-through-5th-grade schools and two middle schools for 6th through 8th graders, director of curriculum Gary Peck reports that curriculum alignment has followed the district’s six-year curriculum cycle.
In 1997-98, as they came up for review in the cycle, the reading and language arts offerings were aligned with the new standards. In 1998-99, social studies was aligned, and this year attention has focused on science and music. Next year, the district plans to look at enrichment areas taught at the middle school level, such as foreign languages, art, music, physical education and technology studies.
As each area of study has been reviewed, the district has adopted new textbooks, undertaken professional development of teachers, written new district standards to reflect the state standards and adjusted curriculum to reflect those standards, Peck said.
The district budgets money for the new textbooks, workbooks and other materials needed to address the new standards.
“But the state helps us out with the Illinois Textbook Loan Program, which is based on schools’ student populations,” Peck said, adding that this year, that program will allow him to buy new science materials for Grades 5 through 8.
Teachers have been kept up to date with the curriculum adjustments by means of the district’s Continuing Education Units, or CEUs.
“We actually teach our teachers after school,” Peck said. “Some of the workshops have included ISAT reading, ISAT writing and ISAT math. As they complete these studies, teachers accrue units that help them move up the pay scale within the district.”
The district also has worked to ensure parents are kept abreast of curricular demands. Each school has held meetings to inform parents of the changes in curriculum, Peck said.
Understanding and responding to the new learning standards is just as important at the high school level, said Jim Gallagher, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction with Midlothian-based Bremen High School District 228, which includes Tinley Park High School and three other high schools.
“When we received the learning standards, we revised our graduation standards,” he said, noting that the graduation requirements for science, math and social studies were increased from two to three years, and the requirements for English from three to four years.
“Across the board, all departments are linking to the new learning standards,” Gallagher added. “Two years ago, we aligned our freshman curriculum to the new learning standards. Last year, it was the 10th graders. This year, it’s the 11th graders, and next year we’ll align the 12th grade curriculum.”
In Orland School District 135, which comprises 10 schools covering prekindergarten through 8th grade, work has proceeded on curriculum alignment since the summer 1997, said Sandra Eliason, the district’s assistant superintendent for instruction. That summer and through the following academic year, the district worked on aligning social studies, health education and fine arts curriculums with the new standards.
Each year since has seen alignment of additional subject areas, Eliason said. In the 1998-99 school year, the language arts and mathematics curriculums conformed with the new standards. This year, science has been the focus.
“As we move through our curriculum development cycle, we align the subjects under study to the Illinois Learning Standards,” Eliason said.
Eliason reports that when aligning curriculums, the district examines what students will need to learn early to be successful later in their schooling. The course outlines created have to take into account the state goals and learning standards under the goals. In mathematics alone, for instance, the state has established 10 goals, with each goal carrying three or four standards.
Ensuring teachers are up to speed on curriculum changes is essential to the alignment’s success, she added. For that reason, the 1999 February Institute Day was devoted to studying the Illinois Learning Standards.
“We looked at each subject, examining where we’re strong and where we need to add curriculum and content, and what training we need to deliver the standards,” she said. “The teachers helped us design the courses they would take in the summer.”
During what she called an intensive week in early August, the teachers took summer courses covering those areas where additional training was deemed necessary.
The institute day in mid-February this year was devoted to alignment and articulation, the process of some 800 teachers from a number of school districts discussing with one another the areas they are covering in the classroom, Eliason said.
Lower grade teachers conferred on achieving curriculum consistency from one classroom to the next. Teachers from Orland Park-based Community Consolidated High School District 230 met with 6th- through 8th-grade teachers from their feeder schools to discuss the areas that junior high school students will need to master to succeed at the high school level.
High school teachers “can tell us these are the strengths we see in the students, and these are the areas in which we need to improve,” Eliason said. “We want to make sure we’re delivering a seamless curriculum, so there are no learning gaps. We need to make sure we’re teaching the essential standards.”
The state has established very clear standards about what students need to know before they graduate from high school, said Florence Dittle, facilitator of instruction with District 230, which is made up of Sandburg High School in Orland Park, Stagg High School in Palos Hills and Andrew High School in Tinley Park.
“And the bar has been raised. It speaks to the paradigm shift in education, that all students can learn and all students should learn. They set the criteria as to what students should learn, and through their testing establish whether students exceed or meet the standards. The expectation is that all can meet the standards.”
Dittle calls the standards “a wonderful opportunity” for the district’s teachers to interact more fully about the subjects they cover in their classrooms.
“Teaching can be a very isolating activity,” she said. “(But) now more than ever, teachers are talking about, `What is the essence of what I teach?’ What we’ve asked our teachers to do is to map their curriculum by month of an academic year, and share those maps with other teachers. When you see these maps, you can see opportunities to enhance and complement other subject areas in your classes.”
For example, she said, writing can be taught not just in English class, but in math, science and other subject areas as well. When such crossovers occur, students make connections between what they’re learning and the actual applications of those lessons, reinforcing their understanding.
Now that the curriculum maps have been completed, the district curriculum will go on-line, to offer teachers, students and parents a clear picture of what each course covers.
“We’re also in the first stages of developing a districtwide assessment, based on the Illinois Learning Standards,” Dittle said. “It will be introduced to students in 8th grade and used as a diagnostic tool to see what they do and don’t know. Students will take the assessment throughout their high school years until they master it.”
The idea is to give students and their parents a clear look at what students need to know, and how well they’re doing throughout their high school years.
“Students need to own the responsibility for learning,” Dittle said.
