How to find & navigate your school’s results on the 2023 Illinois Report Card
On Monday, the Illinois State Board of Education published its 2023 Illinois Report Card, allowing you to access a wide range of information about your school’s academics, finances, teachers and more.
The state board collects data on a range of “accountability indicators” for each public school in the state, assigning a score out of 100 for each indicator. Those indicator scores are weighted and added up to determine a school’s overall “index score,” also out of 100, as well as index scores for each of the school’s student groups.
The state board then issues one of five “summative designations” to each school based on its index score. The highest-performing 10% of schools are given the “exemplary” designation, while the lowest-performing 5% receive the “comprehensive support” designation.
Every school in between receives a “commendable” designation, unless they have an underperforming student group, in which case they receive a “targeted support” designation.
New this year is the “intensive support” designation, which is issued to schools that previously received “comprehensive support” and completed a four-year school improvement cycle but haven’t shown improvement to a higher designation.
To learn more about how the state board measures your school’s performance, click here.
How to search for & read your school’s report card
To see how your school did, go to www.illinoisreportcard.com.
Once there, you can find your school by searching either for the name of your school or district, or by your address, city or ZIP code.
When you get to your school’s report card, you will first see its “school snapshot” page with basic information at the top. Scrolling down to the bottom half, you will see some of your school’s results, including its summative designation.
On the left side of the report card, there are tabs to toggle between the different pages of your school’s report card: school snapshot, academic progress, school environment, students, accountability, teachers, administrators, school highlights, feeder schools (for relevant schools) and retired tests.
Clicking on one of these tabs brings you to that page of the report card, and a list of related metrics, including the accountability indicators, will appear below the tab.
You can click on any of the metrics to see an interactive data visualization of how your school did.
For example, if you click on the “academic progress” tab and then “proficiency,” you can see your school’s proficiency rates according to state standardized tests and toggle between “ELA” — English language arts — math and science. You can also filter the data by year or demographics.
Each page has a description of what is displayed at the top, with the option of clicking “learn more” for additional information. You can also consult the state board’s report card glossary for definitions of terms according to the Illinois School Code, federal statute or guidance, or state board practice.
New visualizations
This year’s report card will have two new visualizations for your school’s summative designation.
When you are on your school’s report card, click on the “accountability” tab on the left and then on “summative designation” when it appears below the tab.
One of the new visuals will show your school’s overall index score as well as the points it received for each of the accountability indicators.
The other will show your school’s index score in comparison to the points threshold for the highest-performing 10% of schools receiving the “exemplary” designation and the lowest-performing 5% of schools receiving the “comprehensive support” designation.
What about the state and district report cards?
In addition to the report cards for each public school, the state board produces report cards on the state and district level.
To see how your district fared, follow the same steps. Go to www.illinoisreportcard.com after 9 a.m. Monday and search for your district by name or location.
Like with your school’s report card, the district’s report card will have a “district snapshot” with basic information on the top and some results lower down, including how many schools received each summative designation.
The tabs on the left vary slightly from the school report card. The district report card has “equity continuum journey” and “schools in district” pages, which are not found on the school report cards. The district report card does not have the “school highlights” and “feeder schools” pages.
There is also some variation in the metrics that appear below each tab when you open the page.
To look at the state’s report card, go to the same web address you did to find your school or district report cards. Instead of conducting a search, click on “state snapshot” below the search button.
This story was originally published October 30, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
