From the Desk of Robin Steans, Sustaining and Improving Learning Renewal Efforts in Illinois
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
More than two years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education in Illinois in ways we never could have imagined. Since then, caregivers, educators, and state and local leaders have had to respond to this crisis with limited information about what impact the pandemic has had on the resources and supports students need. While we are still collectively building this understanding, the state is gaining useful data that can and should inform learning renewal priorities moving forward.
In our latest report, The State We’re In 2022: A Look at the Impact of COVID-19 on Education in Illinois, Advance Illinois began to unpack the pandemic’s impact on students’ access to opportunities and resources during this unprecedented time.
What Emerging Data is Telling Us
The results were sobering, if not surprising. Nearly every facet of education—enrollment, academic instruction, social-emotional learning, and student well-being—was profoundly impacted by the pandemic. And while the data are limited, they highlight that these disruptions were not evenly felt. Further, it is clear that things are not ‘back to normal,’ and likely will not be for a long time:
High Quality early childhood programs help children prepare for and succeed in K-12 grades and beyond. The significant shifts we saw in early childhood enrollment (with some programs seeing decreases of up to 20%) will likely have an impact on academic and developmental readiness as children enter kindergarten in coming years.
Statewide, we lost tens of thousands of students from public and private K-12 schools, and we saw an unprecedented 14 percent decrease in community college enrollment in fall 2020. And while we hope to see numbers increase this fall, in fall 2021, community college enrollment and K-12 enrollment continued to decline rather than bounce back.
Declining attendance and assessment scores, though incomplete, reveal significant impacts on academic progress. In 2020-2021, chronic absenteeism – a predictor of later academic achievement and graduation – increased by 3 and 5 percentage points respectively in our elementary and middle schools, driven in large part by students from low-income households, Black and Latinx students, and English Learners. If left unaddressed, these academic gaps may persist or grow over time, worsening disparities educators have worked hard to reduce.
Coming out of the 2020-2021 school year, and on top of disrupted academic progress, lagging social-emotional skills have made teaching and learning significantly more challenging. Despite being back in-person, educators in Illinois described the 2021-2022 school year as perhaps the most difficult they have faced so far.
Finally, 9th Grade On-Track rates – a powerful predictor of high school graduation - dropped from 87% to 82% in 2021, warning that without intervention, we may soon see a drop in high school graduation rates.
Illinois' Ongoing Response
Families, teachers, districts, and agencies across the state launched a strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic from day one. From rapidly moving curriculum online, to mobilizing to distribute digital devices, to keeping early childhood providers afloat through emergency shutdowns and restricted enrollment, and much, much more, state and local leaders and educators led a robust response early in the pandemic. As importantly, the state provided guidance to districts and educators across the continuum on research-based strategies to address COVID impacts. In the past year, Illinois continued the effort, launching an Early Childhood enrollment campaign, investing in the expansion of the REACH pilot to support trauma-responsive schools, and launching programs like One Goal and high impact tutoring opportunities across the state.
Moving Forward
We cannot lose momentum now. The data makes clear that we must continue to rise to this once-in-a-century moment and maintain a long-term perspective. Moving into our third school year since the start of the pandemic, we urge the state to:
Develop and implement a statewide research agenda. With federal relief funds in hand, state and local education leaders have been implementing a wide array of initiatives to meet students’ academic, social-emotional, and mental health needs. It is vital that we learn from efforts to date – not only to inform ongoing learning renewal work, but to learn and grow so that we can support the next generation to reach its full potential more effectively. The state should have a clear learning agenda, and use data to inform priorities. This involves continuing to develop our understanding of what students need as new data becomes available and maintaining investment in our state’s longitudinal data system.
Sustain effective learning renewal programs after federal funding lapses. All signs indicate that the impacts of the pandemic will continue to be felt far beyond the expiration of federal relief funding in 2024. Building on research and evaluation of existing learning renewal efforts, the state should be ready to identify areas that require continued investment and allocate funds to sustain programs that are making a difference for students.
Fully fund our B-20 education systems. Even before the pandemic hit, adequately and equitably funding education systems has proven to make a difference for kids. Illinois has made meaningful progress towards adequate funding with increases to the Early Childhood Block Grant, K-12 Evidence-Based Funding Formula, MAP grant, and institutional funding in higher education. The pandemic has only heightened the urgency of this work. While federal stimulus funds have helped state agencies and LEAs address immediate pandemic challenges, these funds are intended to be a targeted supplement to ongoing sustained investment in our programs and institutions. This year, we urge the state to increase funding for early childhood programs by 20% and invest no less than $550 million in new funds in the Evidence-Based Funding formula to support K-12 schools. In addition, we urge leaders to support a new, more equitable and sufficient funding approach to higher education. These investments are critical to support long-term student growth and recovery.
Address lagging enrollment. The state has already launched a re-enrollment campaign to address dwindling numbers in Early Childhood programs. We urge the state to monitor and evaluate this program, and apply lessons learned to address re-enrollment of elementary and middle school students. A particular challenge in addressing K-12 enrollment is our inability to identify students who are being homeschooled. Creating statewide reporting requirements for families who homeschool would allow the Illinois State Board of Education to understand how many students who are not in our public and private schools are being homeschooled—and where students may be missing formal education entirely.
Continue to explore opportunities to use time and modality more flexibly. Students have missed crucial learning time, and providing staff and students with opportunities to make up for that time is a challenge. Districts across the state have been piloting new ways to use classroom and extended learning time. Let us learn from these efforts, not only to inform learning renewal, but also to improve our understanding of how to effectively accelerate learning for students. Similarly, we urge institutions across the B-20 continuum to identify and share areas where virtual options have made a difference and work to maintain or develop these efforts.
Implement recommendations coming out of the Whole Child Task Force. Student needs outside of the academic realm have only increased during the pandemic. The Whole Child Task Force has identified clear ways in which the state can better support the whole child, including adopting statewide definitions of trauma-responsive schools and districts, providing high quality training to district staff and community-based service providers, developing a community trauma index to better understand need and including student-to-support staff ratios in the Illinois State Report Card. Let us use this crisis to dramatically strengthen how we support our students.
Strengthen and diversify our educator pipeline. It is good news that over the past few years, districts have been able to add instructional and support positions – roles that were desperately needed pre-COVID, and even more so now. The challenge now is to continue to grow the pipeline to expand and fill these positions across the state, increasing students’ access to high quality teachers, counselors, social workers, and psychologists. Districts must continue to invest in recruitment and retention, but the state has a key role to play to grow and diversify our educator workforce by expanding high school pathways, creating real articulation between 2-year and 4-year programs, and deepening support for scholarships, innovative grow-your-own and program efforts, and ongoing induction and mentoring.
We are on the road to recovery—but not ready to take our foot off the gas. Educators, communities, state, and local leaders have supported students in countless ways, but COVID disruptions have been far-reaching, and have exacerbated already deep inequities. It will take a long-term statewide effort to provide students, children, and families with equitable access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed. Having come this far, Illinois is – and must remain – ready for the challenge.
Robin Steans
President