Advance Illinois Full Statement on Equitable Funding Commission Recommendations

Celebrating Commission Recommendations as Critical Roadmap for Establishing Equity-Driven
Funding for Illinois’ Public Universities

PRESS RELEASE 

Contact: Bravetta Hassell, bhassell@advanceillinois.org 
  

Chicago, IL, March 6, 2023 – Advance Illinois applauds the Commission on Equitable Public University for releasing a blueprint for how Illinois can realize an adequate, equitable, and sustainable approach to support its public universities.  

 “This blueprint represents more than two years of analyzing the complexities of higher education funding,” said Robin Steans, President of Advance Illinois and a member of the Commission. “These recommendations reflect deep research, analysis and listening to the field undertaken by Commissioners, and we think this charts a strong, equitable path forward for students and the institutions that serve them.”  

 Established in 2021, the Commission was created by PA 102-0570 in response to significant disparities in college access, affordability, and degree attainment that exist across universities, and across demographic lines of geography, race, ethnicity, and income. The 33-member Commission of agency heads, legislators, university leaders, and community partners were charged with developing a model for funding the state’s public universities in an adequate, equitable, and stable manner. As rightly highlighted in the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s strategic plan (A Thriving Illinois), such an approach is fundamental to cultivating a healthier university system where strong outcomes follow sufficient, equitable, and predictable state investment in institutions. 

Under the proposed new approach, the state would use a new methodology to determine how much funding each institution needs to serve its student population and run its unique set of programs. Once this “adequacy target” has been identified, new state funds would be directed to the state's public universities in an effort to help those institutions furthest from adequacy close those gaps. According to the report, this new approach: 

·         Determines for each institution a unique funding level based on its students' needs, mission, and variety of programs. 

·         Encourages greater access and success for historically underrepresented students. 

·         Provides a funding increase to every institution when new dollars are invested. 

·         Ensures institutions have flexibility to invest in ways that best serve their students.  

·         Incentivizes institutions to reduce reliance on student tuition and increases state investment.  

·         Distributes new funding equitably and according to need. 

·         Calls for transparency and increased accountability as institutions get closer to adequate funding. 

With the Commission recommendations now submitted to the General Assembly, the next stage of this work begins. Higher education continues to create powerful opportunities for students and for states.  Advance Illinois urges Governor Pritzker and legislators to move with intent to translate the Commission’s recommendations into action. In doing so, Illinois will set the standard for investing in its people and its future.  

“The research continues to affirm that earning a college degree is a game changer for families, communities, and the state,” Steans said. “Supporting investments and evidence-based policy actions that allow every student, regardless of race and income, to access the intergenerational benefits of a college degree is an investment our state cannot afford not to make.” 

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Advance Illinois is an independent policy and advocacy organization working toward a healthy public education system that enables all students to achieve success in college, career, and civic life. 

Illinois Education Policy and Advocacy Nonprofit Advance Illinois Celebrates 15th Anniversary

Chicago, IL, Nov 1, 2023 – Today, Advance Illinois joined more than 250 partners, supporters, agency leaders and elected officials at the University Club to celebrate 15 years of championing an equity-centered, students-first public education system through research, policy, and advocacy.  

“We are proud to have played a significant role in improving student outcomes and opportunities throughout the state,” said Robin Steans, President of the independent, bipartisan, policy and advocacy organization. 

Advance Illinois was founded when diverse civic leaders in Illinois came together to discuss how to improve student outcomes. With support from Boston Consulting Group and Holland & Knight, and funding from The Joyce Foundation and the Gates Foundation, Advance Illinois became the first statewide group in Illinois addressing the full education continuum—from birth to postsecondary. 

“As we mark this milestone, we reflect on the impact we have had on Illinois’ children, students, their families, and educators in our first 15 years,” said Steans. “And we are excited about the vision we have for the work ahead.” 

At the celebration, and joined by Gov. Pritzker, who provided introductory remarks, Advance Illinois honored founding Board Members: 

• William M. Daley, Vice Chairman, Public Affairs, Wells Fargo & Company 

• Miguel del Valle, Former State Senator 

• Governor Jim Edgar, Former Governor of Illinois 

Since its founding in 2008, Advance Illinois has both led and been a vocal advocate for some of the state’s most transformative education policy reforms and investments.  In collaboration with other advocates, Advance Illinois championed a more equitable school funding formula, driving resources to students and schools that need them the most. The organization helped establish the state's longitudinal data system to follow students over time and across systems. Alongside partners, Advance advocated for an ambitious plan to create a more effective and equitable system of early childhood education and care. The organization worked closely with the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus to articulate a systemic approach to student mental health and well-being. Advance Illinois has also worked to convene dozens of agencies and partners to identify and address how to strengthen and diversify our educator pipeline. Additionally, the organization is working closely with partners and legislators to develop recommendations for a more equitable and sustainable higher education funding formula.  

Steans added, “Advance Ilinois would not be the organization it is today without our board leadership, dedicated partners, fellow advocates, and staff over the years. We look forward to continuing to work alongside communities and partners across the B-20 continuum, and with local and state leaders to keep our students at the forefront.  Here’s to the next 15 years!”  

The Edwardson Family Foundation, Morrison Family, Marin and Kate Gjaja, Jennifer Steans and Jim Kastenholz, Heather Steans and Leo Smith, The Joyce Foundation, Massey & Gail LLP, Northern Trust, Gary Fencik, BCG, and Wells Fargo served as presenting, champion, and anniversary sponsors of the event. 

About Advance Illinois   
Advance Illinois is an independent, bipartisan, policy, and advocacy organization working toward a healthy public education system that enables all students to achieve success in college, career, and civic life. Since its founding in 2008, Advance Illinois has become a nationally recognized thought leader in education policy and advocacy. 

Advance Illinois Report: Illinois Educator Workforce Growing but Key Challenges in the Pipeline Persist

CHICAGO – Illinois’ much-publicized teacher shortage crisis actually showed signs of stability and even improvement during the exceptionally challenging COVID-19 pandemic period, a new report from education policy expert Advance Illinois has found. Still, despite encouraging progress, there is much work ahead to ensure there are high-quality, diverse educators in Illinois classrooms and some concerning trends to overcome, the report finds.

At a launch event on Oct. 12 at the City Club of Chicago featuring key policy leaders in education, Advance Illinois has released its latest in-depth report on one of the most significant challenges facing Illinois public schools: finding more qualified, well-prepared, and diverse teachers and leaders to guide students in every school.

 The new report is titled The State of Our Educator Pipeline 2023: Strengths, Opportunities, and the Early Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and is the follow-up to the group’s 2022 report The State We’re In, an early examination of the impact of the pandemic on Illinois’ education system.

 The new report found:

• Illinois has more teachers, support staff, and school leaders working in classrooms today than it has in over a decade, calculated both in general and per student

• The supply of new teachers and principals has gradually increased in recent years, while supply of new paraprofessionals, one of the state’s largest shortage areas, has declined

• More educators have stayed in their jobs and in their schools, even during the difficult first two years of the pandemic and given significant challenges with school climate. Whether these gains hold remains to be seen when data from the 2022-2023 school year is made available.

• Last year, just over half of districts had no teacher vacancies. That said, schools continued to face challenges staffing certain positions—with some of the most severe challenges including paraprofessional positions, special education teaching positions, and bilingual teaching positions.

• Despite research indicating that teacher diversity benefits all students, racial disparities at every stage of Illinois’ educator pipeline—from recruitment and supply to retention— persist.

• While the diversity of candidates going into teaching in Illinois is increasing (and Illinois has much greater diversity in its teacher preparation programs than neighboring states), overall diversity of our teacher workforce continues to lag student diversity by significant margins.

• Illinois invested many of its federal stimulus (ESSER) dollars for programs to help strengthen and diversify the workforce. As federal funds expire, Illinois will need to continue to make critical investments in the pipeline, ultimately for the sake of students.

Advance Illinois, celebrating its 15th anniversary this fall, has become a leading, bi-partisan education policy and advocacy organization whose work is respected by policymakers and whose input is sought for solutions to the policy challenges facing educators and the students they serve. The group’s other important work includes examinations of early childhood education, higher education, school funding equity, and engaged families to support students. 

The Oct. 12 event featured Advance Illinois President Robin Steans moderating a discussion among State Representative Carol Ammons, 2023 Illinois Teacher of the Year Briana Morales, and Illinois State Board of Education Chief of Staff Kimako Patterson on the report’s findings. Streamed video of the event is available at the City Club of Chicago website: https://www.cityclub-chicago.org/. Advance Illinois plans two more local discussions of the report results, in Joliet and Collinsville, in November. 

The Advance Illinois team said the latest research should help policymakers both to recognize the progress being made to address shortages and increase diversity and highlight where more work is needed.

“Our core mission is to help all students receive a high-quality, equitable education that puts them in the best possible position to succeed,” Advance Illinois President Robin Steans said. “We are encouraged that the significant attention and tireless work to increase and shore up the educator pipeline is bearing fruit. But we also see critical areas where we must make more progress, and we must ensure the progress we made is not undone when federal pandemic funding rolls back next year. We hope this report will serve as a guide for how far we have come and the work that must happen now.” 

ILLINOIS’ EDUCATOR WORKFORCE HAS BEEN LARGELY STABLE THROUGH COVID-19 PANDEMIC

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant and likely long-lasting effect on Illinois’ education system. Over the last three years, many have speculated about the role of the pandemic in shaping our educator workforce – with some raising alarms. This latest Advance Illinois report shows that contrary to these concerns, the educator workforce has been relatively stable through the first two full school years since the start of the pandemic (school year 2020-2021 and 2021-2022):

• In total, the number of teachers, assistant principals and paraprofessional in Illinois schools grew by nearly 7,000 educators between 2018 and 2022, now reaching highs not seen since 2009.

• Teacher and principal supply continued trends of growth through the first years of the pandemic, though the former remains below historic levels.

• COVID-19 created historic disruptions in the classroom, but educators at all levels persevered. In the first two years of pandemic education, as staffing levels stayed steady and even rose in some areas

That said, the picture is not all good news. The report also highlights that COVID-19 has had an alarming and measurable negative impact on school climate, and teacher attendance hit a low point in the 2021-2022 school year.

 EDUCATOR SHORTAGES PERSIST, BUT THEIR LOCATION AND CAUSES ARE NUANCED

Data challenges make it difficult to draw firm conclusions about the impact of the pandemic on educator shortages. But challenges certainly persist, with districts facing more acute shortages in certain positions, subject areas, and regions. While issues vary from place to place, some challenges include:

• The number of candidates earning credentials in special education lags behind demand, and special education teachers post a higher-than-average attrition rate. Despite a considerable number of current teachers who are credentialed in special education, these positions make up a significant portion (one third) of all unfilled positions.

• Limited new supply of candidates earning full credentials in bilingual education, and a high reliance on provisionally licensed teachers (educators who are teaching but have not yet completed a teacher preparation program).

• A small set of schools that have difficulty attracting and retaining principals and assistant principals, and many more that experience high rates of principal turnover.

• Declining supply of new paraprofessionals that does not meet demand.

• A shortage of substitutes that makes it more difficult for schools to compensate for unfilled positions.

The report highlights that underlying these challenges is the reality that they are not experienced evenly around the state – that Black and Latinx students, students from low-income households, English Learners, students with IEPs, and rural and urban students bear the brunt of teacher shortages and teacher turnover.

TEACHER AND PRINCIPAL DIVERSITY IS IMPROVING, BUT THERE’S MORE PROGRESS TO BE MADE

Teacher and leader diversity makes a measurable difference for students—and Illinois has been taking steps to increase racial/ethnic diversity in the mostly-white teaching profession. The report’s authors highlight where progress is promising, and where some of the biggest gaps still exist:

• The teacher workforce in Illinois has become slightly more diverse over the last decade – but needs to move faster to lessen gaps between student and teacher diversity.

• Meaningful gains have been made improving diversity in teacher preparation programs and among newly-hired teachers (and Illinois stands out in the region)—but diversity in these areas still lags behind where it should be.

• Racial/ethnic disparities in teacher retention contribute to losses in diversity later in the pipeline.

• Encouragingly, principals in Illinois are more diverse than teachers – with the principal pipeline getting more diverse at certain steps. But though there have been some gains in diversity in principal preparation programs and among assistant principals, principal diversity has been relatively stable over time.

In addition to various pandemic-related short-term policy changes, the report highlights several places where the state has taken steps to address some of these challenges by temporarily creating more flexible licensure options, offering significant investments in grants in shortage areas, and piloting new programs to address diversity across the teacher and principal pipelines. Often these changes are temporary, and investments are short-term (frequently funded by federal stimulus dollars).

“Providing our students a quality education is arguably the most important job there is,” Steans said. “We hope that insights from this report spur advocates, community leaders, along with lawmakers and elected officials to advance more supportive policy actions and further investments in strategies that will ultimately pay off in dividends for our students. Their future depends on it.”

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ABOUT ADVANCE ILLINOIS

Advance Illinois is an independent policy and advocacy organization working toward a healthy public education system that enables all students to achieve success in college, career, and civic life.

Advance Illinois Applauds Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Victory Elevating Whole Child Needs for Safer, More Supportive Schools

Contact: Bravetta Hassell 

bhassell@advanceillinois.org 

CHICAGO, August 3, 2023—Advance Illinois celebrates today’s signing of HB342 into law, helping ensure every Illinois public school district will have the tools needed to more holistically serve students. 

“We applaud Senator Kimberly Lightford and Representative Carol Ammons for leading the effort to deepen how Illinois systemically supports and prioritizes our students’ well-being,” said Robin Steans President of bipartisan education policy advocacy nonprofit Advance Illinois. 

The new law comes just a year after a special task force’s release of recommendations on how Illinois could create a healing-centered K-12 education system. The final report included roughly 30  recommendations and HB342 takes a step forward, placing some of them into law including the adoption of shared definitions of trauma and trauma-responsive schools and districts, creation of an adversity index to provide a window into the level of trauma present in Illinois’ communities and school districts, public reporting of data on the number of school and district level counselors, nurses, and social workers, and the development of recommendations to update Illinois’ preparation and training expectations for teachers and teacher candidates around trauma-informed practices.  

In 2021, the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus made the “whole child” a priority as it successfully advanced reforms in education, economic access, criminal justice, and health. As part of their education omnibus bill, the ILBC passed legislation that created a Whole Child Task Force of mental experts, parents, teachers, administrators, state agencies, and advocates to explore a sustainable system for better supporting student well-being at a time when Child Trends estimated that 40% of Illinois youth had been exposed to at least one adverse childhood experience, or ACE, with the exposure of Black and Latinx students and students from low-income households to ACEs even more severe.  

 “Creating a path to put more and appropriate resources and capacity in the place where our young people spend most of their time just makes sense,” said Steans. “This being even more the case when we consider the far reaching and also uneven effects COVID-19 has had on young people—much of which we are only beginning to understand.” 

Decades of research has long cited the impact that childhood trauma has on children’s ability to be successful in school and in life over the long-term. Until this point, however, what mental health, social-emotional and trauma-informed services and resources have been provided in the state’s public school districts have been idiosyncratic—well-supported in some districts and inadequate in others due to lack of support. 

"I strongly believe the approach has the potential to make Illinois a national leader in advancing equitable, strength-based, and culturally-attuned trauma responsive and healing centered services," Lightford told the Illinois Senate Education Committee in March.  

The signing of HB342 into law complements and aligns with other state initiatives to support the whole child, including the Governor’s  Children's Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative, State Board of Education supported, The Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing (REACH) Statewide Initiative , SEL Hubs, and Community Partnership Grants.  

“While there is still much work to be done, these are important foundational pieces to ensure that Illinois is equipped to respond and support the needs of all our students and youth,” Steans said. 

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About Advance Illinois 
Advance Illinois is an independent policy and advocacy organization working toward a healthy public education system that enables all students to achieve success in college, career, and civic life. Since its founding in 2008, Advance Illinois has become a nationally recognized thought leader in education, policy, and advocacy.     

K-12 Funding Advocates Gather in Springfield, Calling on Lawmakers to ‘Fund the Formula’

CHICAGO —On Wednesday, April 26, more than 100 teachers, parents, students and school and district leaders, and students traveled to the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield to advocate for increased investments in K-12 school districts by way of the Evidence-based Funding Formula (EBF).

On Funding Illinois’ Future Advocacy Day 2023, advocates came together to raise awareness about the need for increased K-12 investments and meet with their legislators to share how EBF has been pivotal in ensuring high-quality education in their communities. As part of the day-long event, advocates will join together in the Capitol Rotunda for a rally where Rep. Carol Ammons (103rd District), Sen. Adriane Johnson (30th District), and Rep. Laura Faver Dias (62nd District) provided remarks along with members of the Funding Illinois’ Future (FIF). FIF is a coalition of more than 100 school districts, leaders, parents, educators, and civic- and faith-based organizations that advocated for the passage of the Evidence-based Funding formula in 2017. Today the group is focused on the goal of equitable and adequate funding for all K-12 schools. 

Advocates in Springfield that day included parents, teachers, students, and leaders from Noble Schools, Morton East High School, Corazon Community Services, Faith Coalition for the Common Good, Illinois PTA, Teach Plus, West 40, and superintendents from Vienna and Riverton. 

“We were thrilled to be able to resume coming together again in-person, in Springfield, as a community that cares about making sure every K-12 student in Illinois is provided the excellent education they deserve,” said Cheryl Flores, Director of Community Engagement at Advance Illinois. “We know that when we can show up like this and make our voices heard, the urgent need for change is heard by our lawmakers, too.”

About the Evidence Based Funding (EBF) formula

In 2017, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Evidence-based Funding Formula, replacing the K-12 funding structure at the time with a formula that prioritizes the state’s least well-funded districts. EBF distributes funds according to a research-based estimate of what schools need to fully serve students, and takes into account differences in student needs across districts. Prior to the passage of EBF, 169 districts were funded at less than 60% of what they needed. Five years later, only 2 districts are still below full funding. Still today, over half of the state’s students—more than one million children—are still in districts funded below 75% of full funding. 

Research shows that high-quality educational experiences from both through postsecondary make a real difference for students and communities. Adequate and equitable state funding is critically important to providing these opportunities for all students. 

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