As part of the district’s work to develop a new system for school quality, the accountability redesign initiative will engage our city’s education stakeholders to inform the development of a new school accountability system that promotes equity and excellence in our schools.

Chief Portfolio Officer Alfonso Carmona and Director of School Quality, Measurement, and Research Jeff Broom are the leaders of this process at Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The Center for Assessment is assisting in leading technical discussions, Kids First Chicago is leading stakeholder engagement activities, and The Chicago Public Education Fund is managing engagement with the advisory group. The advisory group recommended an accountability framework to CPS, which Director Broom and CPS' Law Department are using to draft into a draft. The policy will undergo 30 days of public comment starting on March 1st before a Chicago Board of Education vote in April of 2022.

The district will be conducting extensive stakeholder engagement throughout the process. Touchpoints including town hall meetings, focus groups, updates to existing stakeholder groups (e.g., Community Action Councils) will occur frequently and will always be posted in advance on our accountability redesign website.

The CPS School Quality Rating Policy (SQRP) was the district's previous policy for measuring annual school performance.

Accountability systems, also referred to as School Performance Frameworks (SPFs) are designed to act as information tools that provide actionable information on school performance and quality to an array of stakeholders. Common sources of information that are conveyed by SPFs include standardized test scores, indicators of achievement gaps, indicators of school climate and culture, and other factors of interest that vary from district to district. Some SPFs present information in a composite or summative score of schools while others present a range of data in a dashboard.

CPS provides this information to its stakeholders because doing so aligns with our core set of beliefs surrounding accountability:

1. We fundamentally believe our families deserve to know how each of their schools is doing as it pertains to educating students; regardless of circumstances.
2. We believe that understanding how students are performing (where there are gaps, where students are on- or off-track, etc.) is a necessary first step to providing equitable supports where they are needed, for both students and schools.
3. We are working towards a model of accountability in which the district is held to the same standard to which it holds its schools, and takes equal responsibility for student outcomes.

The district is committed to measuring student and school performance, and the district's previous school accountability system, School Quality Rating Policy (SQRP), had been cited as a national exemplar for how to use data to inform school communities. However, we heard feedback from our stakeholders and communities that SQRP could be improved to better account for systemic inequities, and can be better optimized to support critical aspects of the district's work.

Key goals of the new accountability system go beyond traditional school ratings to include:

• Providing a more complete picture of school performance and progress. The advisory group will seek to define and develop a more comprehensive representation of the ways in which schools have improved and are effectively serving the needs of their diverse student populations. 
• Improving the district’s capacity to support schools. The new system will include a way to measure school performance to account for differences in school context and resourcing. 
• Providing clear information to parents and the public. The district believes that information on school quality and other data should be accessible, complete, and understandable to all stakeholders. 
• Evaluating and reporting on district effectiveness. Recognizing shared responsibility for the success of schools, the new accountability system will also develop and report measures of district effectiveness that will enable conversations about district accountability.

CPS will be creating multiple ways to ask questions, but for now, if you have questions or wish to provide feedback, please email us at schoolmeasurement@cps.edu.