Illinois 23 IL ADC 1.420; 23 IL ADC 1.APP. D

Kindergarten Readiness Survey Implementation, "K" in State Standards

From Illinois Register: This rulemaking resulted from the State Board of Education's application for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) for a Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grant to design and implement early learning and development systems that are comprehensive in scope and coordinated among the various state agencies charged with administering the programs. As set forth in RTT-ELC, the goals of the federal grant program were to increase the number and percentage of low-income and disadvantaged children enrolled in high-quality early learning programs; design and implement an integrated system of high-quality early learning programs and services; and ensure the use of certain nationally recommended assessments.

As a support to the RTT-ELC application, the State Board in October considered a rulemaking to require school districts to administer a kindergarten readiness survey, starting in school year 2014-15. Funding from the federal grant was for the design and implementation of a survey that would be used to gauge a student's progress during the school year. Unfortunately, Illinois was not successful in its effort to win a RTT-ELC
grant.

The lack of federal funding now available for the Illinois Kindergarten Individual Development Survey, or KIDS, initiative has resulted in staff's recommendation that the implementation date for districts to begin administering the kindergarten survey be delayed until the 2015-16 school year, provided state funding is available to pay the cost of the survey's administration. It is anticipated that the limited statewide implementation of the KIDS be conducted during two school years – 2013-14 and 2014-15 – rather than one, and the proposed rule is being modified to note the second year.

Additionally, the agency removed a requirement for school districts to participate either in a pilot of the survey or a limited statewide implementation, to align with a modification to 23 Ill. Adm. Code 235 (Early Childhood Block Grant), effective April 18, 2012.

Finally, the amendments also acknowledge that the Illinois Learning Standards, set forth in Section 1.Appendix D (State Goals for Learning) of the rules, apply to kindergarten. This Section lists the goals and standards for all students, including the common core standards that are for K-12 in English language arts and math. The remaining State-developed goals and standards are the same for kindergarten as they are for other grade levels, with the benchmarks (which are not stated in the rules) specific to the kindergarten level.
Page 250-276 of 403: http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/index/register/register_volume36_issue22.pdf


Source:
www.cyberdriveillinois.com

Status: AdoptedStatus Date: 06/01/2012