Education board cuts accountability staff February 28, 2001 BY JOHN O'CONNOR SPRINGFIELD--The Illinois State Board of Education has spent more than $50 million since 1996 to revamp school monitoring, but now its "quality assurance" section is falling victim to staff cuts designed to make the agency more accountable. Nineteen quality assurance staffers will be among those whose jobs will be cut or moved to meet Gov. Ryan's goal of reducing the agency's head count, officials said. Another 21 will come from other agency education offices, which include direct services to schools; 50 will be trimmed from the operations and financial sections; 21 from technology, and 10 from the superintendent's office, spokeswoman Kim Knauer said. The cuts include transfers to other agencies that Ryan suggested last week. Decisions on which jobs will be eliminated have not been made, Knauer said. The quality assurance cuts will be part of a re-evaluation of the system. A board-hired consultant unveiled the system in 1996 to replace what officials said was a burdensome "paper-driven" process. In the quality assurance program, staffers and teams of teachers and administrators from around the state visit schools to see if they're following state learning standards and recommend ways to improve. Auburn School Supt. James Doglio said the process helped schools that went through it. Educators who have seen the pendulum swing on state board initiatives will not cheerfully accept another change, he said. "They need to get somewhere and stick with it. You can't keep changing rules," Doglio said. "You don't get anything accomplished when you do." More than $9 million a year has been spent for quality assurance on school-improvement grants, team-member training and visits. Knauer said officials are trying to revise the process to make it more useful for schools while maintaining accountability. "School districts are used to this process," Knauer said. "Those that are doing it well, is there another evolutionary step we can take with them?" Only about one third of the state's 3,000 or so schools required to go through the process have been visited since it started in 1997. Officials initially promised to visit 600 to 800 schools a year. Associated Press Copyright © The Sun-Times Company All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
