The Coalition for Illinois High Schools Presents The Third Annual High School Challenge Conference Leadership and Learning: Connecting the Dots on June 16 and 17, 2008. The event will be held at the Doubletree Hotel on 10 Brickyard Drive in Bloomington, IL.

This conference is designed for all those involved with and interested in the work of Illinois high schools including: superintendents, school administrators, teachers, school board members, curriculum directors, special education and ELL directors, ROE/ISC/RESPRO staff, business leaders and university personnel. You are especially encouraged to bring a district team.

The purpose of this conference is to prepare Illinois students for the world in which they will live and work.  Conference participants will leave the conference with:

Practical strategies that have improved student performance in Illinois high schools;
Tools that can be used for data analysis and decision making;
Research-based strategies that support student learning;
Information about practical follow-up support for Illinois high schools.

Click here for more information and to download a registration form: www.ilprincipals.org/pages/special_events.html.

Special Message from State Superintendent Christopher A. Koch

All Illinois school districts previously received a notice from the State Superintendent about Sherman v. Township District 214, 07 C 6048. This case challenges the Illinois law which required a moment of silence at the opening of the school day.

On Thursday, May 29, 2008, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman entered a preliminary injunction stopping the application of this law. This injunction prohibits all school districts in the State of Illinois from conducting the mandatory moment of silence. All school districts should immediately cease enforcing this law.

Princeton Data Completing Random Survey of Illinois Principals for ISBE

ISBE recently contacted IPA to inform Illinois Principals that Princeton Data will be contacting random Principals to survey them on issues such as school technology usage, teacher preparation, and other relevant school related issues.  All Illinois Principals who are contacted are asked to assist ISBE in this data collection effort.

Roosevelt University and Concordia University Seek Assistance in Study of Type 75 Programs

Tom Kersten from Roosevelt University and Margaret Trybus from Concordia University are conducting a study of the Illinois university administrative Type 75 internship programs. They are also interested in administrators' perceptions of the effectiveness of their internship experiences in preparing them for their initial school-level administrative positions. The web-based anonymous survey, which takes 10 minutes or less to complete, can be accessed through the following link.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Yf_2fcro1eO4yORt_2bw_2bII_2bPA_3d_3d

Also, if you have any questions or concerns with this research, please feel free to contact Tom Kersten at (847) 619-8609 or Margaret Trybus at (708) 209-3157. If you would like to speak with someone other than the researchers, you may contact the Roosevelt University Institutional Review Board at (312) 341-3753.

Finally, if you would like to receive a copy of the results after data are collected, please send a separate email to tkersten@roosevelt.edu with your request.

Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to contribute to this study.

New Research on Teacher Preparation Released by Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality

Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality released research this week that points to two specific areas where teacher training may be lacking, according to rookie teachers in the trenches and fresh from training: preparedness for the diversity of the contemporary American classroom and teaching students with special needs. Seventy-six percent of new teachers said that teaching an ethnically diverse student body was covered in their training.  But only 39 percent say that their training in this area helps them a lot now that they are in the classroom, which puts their evaluation of the effectiveness of this aspect of their training near the bottom of the list of subjects the new teachers had studied.  The survey covered 12 areas of teacher training ranging from direct instruction to their study of history, philosophy and policy debates in public education.  No other factor examined in the Public Agenda research showed nearly as great a gap between how many received training in a given area and new teachers' assessments of the effectiveness of said training.  http://www.publicagenda.org/lessonslearned3/pdfs/lessons_learned_3.pdf.