11.20.09 ILERT Joint Conference Presentation: Moving Forward Together
Time: 1:30 pm
Location:  Hyatt Regency Chicago
This past year ILERT published its 10 Legislative Priorities and Policy Briefs and held a legislative symposium on how data matters in policy issues. Check out how these topics are being championed to support education policy discussions and decisions.

The forum will begin with cocktails at 5:30 p.m. Dinner will be served at 6:00 p.m. with the program starting at 7:00 p.m.

As a legislator or policy maker, you have likely indicated that you support a high quality education system in Illinois. As an advocate, you might be concerned that education should not just be about “high stakes testing” to comply with NCLB. Perhaps you have wondered what data you can trust to measure accountability or what data is even available to schools and teachers regarding student achievement. If you are a legislator, you know that your ability to make good decisions about education issues requires good data. Therefore, the purpose of this legislative forum is to engage in a dialogue about these types of issues and to explore what the return on investment could be if our student information systems were upgraded or improved.

To that end, the program will focus on the following key questions:

• What is longitudinal data?
• Why is it important to student achievement?
• How can data be used to improve instruction?
• Where is Illinois compared to other states in the development of a high quality system?
• What is currently on the agenda in Illinois to improve/revise our data system?

11.05.07 Special ILERT ISBE Growth Model Assessment Forum
Speaker/Facilitator:  Yeow Meng Thum, Ph.D. (Michigan State University)

Dr. Thum is a leader in research pertaining to the design of gross productivity indicators (growth model assessment). Some of his recent studies examine indicators of individual and organizational change, in the context of evaluating teacher and school productivity using student achievement test results. He was formally with the University of Chicago and the Consortium on Chicago School Research and now is on the faculty of the College of Education at Michigan State University.

Documents from Dr. Thum's presentation:
Importance of Student Learningin School Accountability (ppt)
Accountability Model Example: Tennessee (ppt)
Some Value Value-Added Productivity Indicators (pdf)
Growth Models Policymaker Guide 2005 (pdf)

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