The 5Essentials survey, administered under the auspices of the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), measures whether schools are organized to improve student achievement.
On the 2024 5Essentials, School District 65 scored in the “Average Implementation” range for four of the five essentials: Effective Leaders, Collaborative Teachers, Supportive Environment and Ambitious Instruction. Of those, it was at the lower end of the average range for Effective Leaders and Collaborative Teachers.
It just barely squeaked into a ‘More Implementation” level for Involved Families.
There are subcategories for each of the five essentials, 20 in all. The results showed that the district moved down in 12 of the 20 subcategories compared to the 2023 survey results, up in six and stayed the same in two.
A written report prepared by Donna Cross, District 65’s director of research, assessment, accountability and data, and Cindy Gonzalez, performance management and assessment analyst, was provided to the school board as part of the packet of materials for its Nov. 4 meeting. “The survey generates valuable data meant to highlight areas of strength and areas that need support,” the report said.
“Overall in 2024, District 65 performance on the 5Essentials indicates that our schools remain, ‘moderately organized’ for improvement on average.”
Cross and Gonzales’s report also presented survey results for each school, together with a summative rating for each school. There are five summative ratings: not yet organized for school success, partially organized, moderately organized, organized, and well organized.
The ratings by school are:
Not yet organized: Bessie Rhodes, Lincolnwood and Park.
Partially organized: Oakton, Walker, Willard and JEH Education Center.
Moderately organized: Haven, Nichols, Kingsley, Lincoln and Walker.
Organized: Chute, Dewey, Orrington, Washington, King Arts and Rice.
Well Organized: Dawes.
Background
“The 5Essentials survey provides a comprehensive picture of a school’s organizational culture through student and teacher responses to questions designed to measure five ‘essentials’ critical for school success,” said Cross and Gonzales’s report.
The researchers who designed the survey say that “The 5Essentials framework as measured by our survey instruments is a leading indicator of school performance now and predictive of the future.”
The 5Essentials survey is based on a 20-year study of more than 400 schools in Chicago. Researchers at the University of Chicago found that schools that measured strong in at least three of the five essentials were 10 times more likely to improve student achievement in reading and math than schools weak in three or more of the essentials.
The five essentials, which form the framework of the 5Essentials survey, are:
- Ambitious Instruction: Classes are challenging and engaging,
- Effective Leaders: Principals and teachers implement a shared vision for success,
- Collaborative Teachers: Teachers collaborate to promote professional growth,
- Involved Families: The entire staff builds strong external relationships, and
- Supportive Environment: The school is safe, demanding and supportive.
Overall, 87% of students in grades four to eight responded to the survey; 78% of teachers and 29% of parents responded. The report says:
- Teachers’ responses are primarily used in assessing the categories Effective Leaders and Collaborative Teachers.
- Students’ responses are primarily used in assessing Ambitious Instruction and Supportive Environment.
- Parents’ responses are the primary responders for Involved Families.
What the scores mean
In the survey, each school is given an “Essential Score” for each of the five essentials. ISBE defines an Essential Score as “a summary indicator that describes the school’s performance on each particular essential.” The scores are reported on a scale of 1-99, where every 20 points is exactly one standard deviation wide, and the benchmark score — a score of 50 — is the 2013 Illinois state average by type of school (e.g., K-5, K-8, 6-8 or 9-12).
The scores are thus norm-based and reflect how a school is doing in terms of implementing each of the five essentials in relation to all other schools in the state that have the same grade configuration. The scoring categories are:
- 0 to 19: Least Implementation (regarded as “very weak” implementation);
- 20 to 39: Less Implementation (regarded as “weak” implementation);
- 40 to 59: Average Implementation (regarded as “neutral” implementation);
- 60 to 79: More Implementation (regarded as “strong” implementation);
- 80 to 100: Most Implementation (regarded as “very strong” implementation).
To perform “strong” in a category, a school must obtain a score of 60 or higher on that essential.
District 65’s scores
District 65’s scores declined in three of the five essentials in the 2023-24 school year, and went up in two. All changes were relatively small. The chart below shows the scores for the five essentials on the 2023 and the 2024 surveys.
There are at least two takeaways from the 2024 data:
- District 65 is below the baseline average for the state (i.e., a score of 50) in three of the five essentials: Effective Leaders, Collaborative Teachers and Supportive Environment.
- The district had strong performance (a score of 60 or higher) in only one of the five essentials, and that was Involved Families. The district’s score for that essential in 2024 was 60.
Thus, the district did not perform strongly in three or more of the five essentials. It just barely met the mark in only one essential.
The chart below shows the trends in 5Essentials scores during the last 10 years. Between 2015 and 2024, scores have dropped in all five of the essentials: 7 points for Effective Leaders, 10 points for Collaborative Teachers, 7 points for Involved Families, 1 point for Supportive Environment and 22 points for Ambitious Instruction.
Scores on the underlying subcategories
Each of the five essentials has subcategories. For example, there are four subcategories that go into assessing whether a school has Effective Leaders. They are program coherence, teacher-principal trust, teacher influence and instructional leadership.
The 5Essentials survey provides a score for each subcategory, which is determined in a way similar to the scoring for each of the five essentials.
The report prepared by Cross and Gonzales shows that in 2024 the district received lower overall scores in 12 of 20 of the subcategories, higher scores in six of the subcategories and the same score in two of the subcategories.
The district scored in the “less implementation” (or weak) range in four of the 20 subcategories; it scored in the “average implementation” (or neutral) range in 12 of the subcategories; and it scored in the “more implementation” (or strong) range in four of the subcategories.
The chart below shows District 65’s scores for each of the 20 subcategories on the 2024 5Essentials survey.
Cross and Gonzalez’s report was not orally presented to the school board on Nov. 4, and the board did not discuss the results of the 5Essentials survey.
School District 65 gets mediocre scores on 5Essentials survey is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.