Advance Illinois Statement on the Signing of the Every Student Succeeds Act into Law

December 10, 2015: Today, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) into law ushering in a new day for the education system in our country.ESSA replaces the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). While flawed and in need of overhaul, NCLB did shine a light on how well we are doing in educating our students and pointed out where we suffer from achievement gaps based on race and income.ESSA calls on Illinois to continue moving forward in improving results for all our students by shifting the focus to states to develop their own high-quality accountability systems. How Illinois answers that call matters greatly.Illinois now must develop a more robust and refined accountability system, one that prioritizes schools in need, attends to all students, and anticipates the supports students need to succeed. Advance Illinois will work to ensure that any new system is designed to help accelerate student progress and continues to shine a light on all students.ESSA is based on the belief that all students can succeed. The ball is now in our court to deliver. Advance Illinois will work with the state and other stakeholders and will continue to advocate for policies and practices that support that ideal.

Well-Respected Education Leader Ginger Ostro Will Take the Helm at Advance Illinois

December 1, 2015: Advance Illinois announced that, after a national search, respected education funding and policy expert Ginger Ostro will lead the bipartisan, non-profit education policy organization as it continues in its efforts to ensure that children across Illinois have the support they need to succeed.

Ostro takes the helm of Advance Illinois as the state implements new standards and assessments, rethinks how best to prepare and develop teachers and principals, considers how best to put new data to work to support instruction, and wrestles with an outdated school funding formula that earns Illinois the dubious honor of having the most inequitable funding system in the country.

Ellen Alberding, Advance Illinois board member and president of the Joyce Foundation, led the search. "We are delighted to have someone of Ginger's caliber at the helm. She not only understands policy, but she also knows education finance and has a deep understanding of the state policy-making process," Alberding said.

John Edwardson, retired CEO and chair of CDW and Advance Illinois board chair welcomed Ostro, noting, "Ginger is smart, experienced, and a dedicated public servant who will help lead Advance Illinois as it starts its next chapter."

Edwardson thanked Robin Steans for her years of service as Founding Executive Director. “Robin took the idea of Advance Illinois—to be an objective voice for a healthy public education system—from concept to fruition. She built a well-respected, effective organization that has become a leading voice for education policy. We are grateful to her for all she has done.”

Over the course of the past 20 years, Ostro’s work has spanned early childhood education, higher education, education funding, child welfare, and juvenile justice policy. Most recently, she served as Chief Financial Officer at Chicago Public Schools. She graduated from the University of Chicago before going on to earn a Master’s in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

"The coming months and years will be critical for Illinois’ students, and Advance Illinois will play a key role in forging solutions and shaping policy to help all our students succeed,” Ostro said. “There’s never been a more exciting or challenging time to work in education in Illinois, and I’m looking forward to leading the effort for an organization that is a proven authority on education policy, relying on research and best practices about what works for students.”

"Ginger represents the best in public service," added former Governor Jim Edgar, Advance Illinois board member and founding co-chair. "She is whip-smart, politically savvy, and always focused on the work at hand. With her background, she could work anywhere, but she has chosen to use her skills to help our students and our state. We are lucky to have her on board."

"There is little doubt that Ginger will be a fierce, knowledgeable advocate for school funding reform," says Advance Illinois board and search committee member Juan Salgado, president of Instituto del Progreso Latino and 2015 recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.

Ostro officially will begin her new position on January 4, 2016.

Statement from Robin Steans, Executive Director of Advance Illinois, on the Performance of Illinois and Chicago on the Nation’s Report Card

October 28, 2015: The nation’s report card released today provides new and impactful insight into student performance in classrooms across Illinois, Chicago as well as the nation’s largest cities and other states.

The results are a clarion call for us all and a cautious reminder that the important work of providing a high-quality public education to all students, no matter where they live or attend school, remains urgent and ongoing.Illinois’ performance on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress is, at best, a mixed bag.

Our state remained flat in both reading and math at grades four and eight, showing little movement up or down that was statistically significant, according to the results. Illinois held steady, however, as the nation’s performance declined in both reading and math, and outperformed the national average as a result.

Students in state’s largest school district, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), again outpaced the academic growth seen in Illinois and other large urban districts and showed some of the largest gains nationwide in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math, according to the NAEP results shared as part of the Trial Urban District Assessment. (More detail on Chicago and Illinois performance below)The context for this performance, whether in Chicago or Illinois, matters tremendously. Consider this:

• Illinois held steady even as state funding for public schools lagged behind the recommended amount needed for an adequate education. As a result, funding gaps worsened in a state that already ranks among the most inequitably funded and school districts that serve concentrations of low-income students, who need additional support, struggled to provide it.

• Illinois students, educators and schools are being asked to do more than ever before with the rollout of the new Illinois Learning Standards for math and English Language Arts (based on the Common Core). This is a significant shift in how teachers teach and students learn that takes time. Educators in some of our state’s 860 school districts have made this shift with resources, collaboration time and professional development while other districts with lesser means have not been able to provide such supports.

These are not excuses, but rather explanatory context for Illinois’ performance trend on NAEP in recent years.

Illinois’ Performance Gaps Narrow, But More Work is Needed to Help All Students AchieveIllinois continues to reduce some of the performance gaps that ranked among the nation’s largest in recent years.

In eighth-grade math, for instance, the divide between African-American students and their white classmates narrowed by eight percentage points to a 28-percentage point gap in 2015. Among Latino students and their white classmates, the divide narrowed by the same margin to an 18-percentage point spread.

Underlying the narrower performance gap, however, is the declining performance of Illinois white students in eighth-grade math.

The same trend can be seen in the performance of low-income students and their more affluent classmates. The performance gap narrowed from 34 percentage points in 2013 to 28 percent points in 2015 in eighth-grade math. But while low-income student performance stagnated, the performance of their non-low-income peers declined.

Chicago Students Show Steady Progress

Chicago Public Schools is among the nearly two dozen large urban districts who participate in the so-called Trial Urban District Assessment, offering insight into how the city’s students fared on this nationally comparable measure of student performance. The results show that Chicago continues to make outsized gains.

In eighth-grade math, CPS eighth-graders increased six scale-score points from the 2013 administration, the greatest growth reported among other urban districts.

In fourth-grade reading – another key academic milestone – CPS students increased by seven scale points, the third highest growth among urban districts nationwide.

Looking beyond the aggregate scale scores and proficiency rates, we find that not all students are improving at the same rate, and this should spur additional analysis and study about whether we are adequately supporting all students.

By any measure – whether in Chicago, Illinois or the nation as a whole – there is a great deal of ground still to cover. No one can be satisfied when fewer than half of Illinois students score proficiently on state assessments, and students in too many schools languish years below grade level with little support to improve.

Yet day after day in Chicago and Illinois, teachers and school leaders strive to help all students reach their potential. As Illinoisans, we owe them our support.

Education Organizations Endorse HJRCA 26 as a First Step Toward Building Better Schools

An Important Step Toward Building Stronger Schools

By:
Cinda Klickna – President, Illinois Education Association
Dan Montgomery – President, Illinois Federation of Teachers president
Ben Schwarm – Illinois Statewide School Management Alliance
Jessica Handy – Government Affairs Director, Stand for Children Illinois
Amy Ballinger-Cole – Director of Government Relations, Advance Illinois
Diane Rutledge – Executive Director, Large Unit District Association

Parents, educators, advocates and entire communities grapple with how to ensure every student receives the best education possible so children can be prepared for their future careers and secure good jobs in an increasingly competitive global economy.

It will take a comprehensive, long-term plan to achieve and sustain this goal. We believe a core component of that plan is adequate funding for our students and schools.

A proposal that will deliver more needed funding for our students is House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 26. The measure provides for an additional 3 percent surcharge on income over $1 million. The additional revenue would be earmarked exclusively for elementary schools and high schools throughout Illinois and would be distributed on a per-pupil basis. Based on a five-year average of taxable income over $1 million, this proposal would generate an estimated $1 billion in additional funding for Illinois students each year. In light of the budget challenges Illinois faces in the coming years, this funding would be a lifeline for schools without devastating other critical state services.

This idea may sound familiar to you. You may be one of the more than 2.2 million people who supported an advisory referendum last November calling for this proposal to be implemented. Almost 64 percent of those voting on the referendum across Illinois supported it. More than 40 counties approved the measure with at least 60 percent of the vote; 100 of the 102 counties in Illinois approved with at least 50 percent of the vote.

Countless school districts across the state struggle to maintain a high level of education, while experiencing cuts to their budgets year after year and receiving state support that has not kept up with students’ needs. Currently, the amount of funding intended to represent the minimum level to adequately fund the education of a single pupil in the Illinois public school system has not increased since 2010, and the state’s share of funding for our schools has dwindled in recent years due to budget pressures, with disadvantaged school districts hardest hit by such cuts.

Schools want to do more, but they are struggling. More than two-thirds of the school districts in Illinois are in deficit spending, and they face new budget-making obstacles with the loss of about $5 billion in state revenues due to the rollback of the state’s income tax increase. Simple math tells us we cannot allow significant revenue to disappear and believe we can continue providing a quality education to our students.

We agree that House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 26 is not the entire solution to our education funding challenges. In addition to investing more, we have an obligation to ensure state dollars reach our students who are most in need. We also agree that money alone will not improve education or close achievement gaps. Parental involvement is crucial, as are dedicated teachers and a solid support network to help students achieve excellence. But money matters, and there is clearly much more that can – and should – be done to help schools give all students the best education. House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 26 is a common-sense step in the right direction.

We encourage all local residents, parents, teachers and educators to call their state representatives and urge them to support House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 26.