Illinois Report Card Launches with new data

The Illinois Report Card has been updated and released with its annual refresh of new data and, in this year’s case, some additional data. The Illinois Report Card provides schools and other stakeholders a wide range of data to provide insight into trends in and across schools. The Illinois Report Card is overseen by the Illinois State Board of Education and implemented by the Illinois Interactive Report Cards Office at Northern Illinois University. Each year, as required by law, the Illinois Report Card is released with data from the previous school year at the end of October.

This year, the major new data element includes site-based expenditure data, which was reported by school districts for each school to the State for the first time based on the requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

This data shows the overall amount spent by school, and this has garnered widespread reporting from media outlets throughout Illinois; This article from the Daily Herald is just one example.

In addition to the inclusion of the site-based expenditure data, there is a whole range of additional changes to the website from the addition of growth data on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) to new fields that can be used to disaggregate data to an updated color scheme. A full list of updates can be found here in the 2019 Illinois Report Card Release Notes, which are also published on the Illinois Report Card homepage.

October 2019