In the News

A new report on Illinois education highlights both progress and persistent challenges. The state has improved in early learning and college readiness, yet proficiency rates in reading, writing, and math have stalled despite billions in added K-12 funding.

A new report about education in Illinois suggests that overall, the state has made significant progress in key areas, from readying toddlers for kindergarten to helping young adults earn college degrees or industry certificates before entering the workforce.

Illinois is no longer one of the worst states in America when it comes to funding K-12 schools, an improvement that may have helped it weather some of the COVID pandemic’s disruption to student learning, according to a new report.

A new report shows Illinois educational attainment continues to rise, and the state's schools weathered pandemic challenges better than other states.

Eight years after putting in place a tool that gauges kindergarten readiness, more children in Illinois are showing up to elementary school ready to go, but gaps between different groups of students remain and are pronounced, according to a new report on public education in the state.

Education in Illinois shows promising areas of growth — including improved kindergarten readiness and increased graduation rates — but remains hampered by stagnant reading and math literacy, as well as rising higher education costs, according to a new report.

On the Illinois State Board of Education’s recent step to adopt new research-informed assessment performance levels, Robin Steans said. “You don’t want those cut scores to be artificially high so that we’re telling parents and kids they’re not ready if they really are. You don’t want them so low that parents and students think everything’s fine when it may not be.”

Chicago Public Schools will receive an additional $76 million from the state this fiscal year for a total of $1.9 billion, according to new data released by the state on Friday.

With diversity, equity and inclusion efforts facing scrutiny under the Trump administration, school districts and states looking to diversify their teacher workforces are in a precarious situation. 

For over two decades, state funding of Illinois’ public universities has failed to keep up with rising costs, forcing administrators to raise tuition, which, in turn, has squeezed family finances and even discouraged students from pursuing a degree.

During the spring 2025 legislative session, lawmakers did not pass other major higher education policy initiatives, including Pritzker’s plan to allow community colleges to offer four-year bachelor’s degrees in certain high-demand career fields, and a long-sought overhaul in the way Illinois funds its public universities.

State lawmakers passed dozens of education bills. They also left hundreds more on the table when they wrapped up this past weekend.

Illinois lawmakers passed a $55 billion budget with slim increases to early childhood education programs and K-12 schools. The lack of new dollars for programs comes as schools grapple with smaller budgets since federal COVID-19 relief expired.

Illinois is making progress in growing its educator workforce, but shortages persist in critical areas. Indeed, the stop gap measures that are being used to fill those vacancies keep the education process moving forward for students but are not a sustainable approach to ensuring quality and equity for the long-term.

Amid persistent staffing shortages, East Aurora School District 131 has taken several new measures to recruit teachers over the past few years.

Illinois education officials are considering lowering the scores students need to get to be classified as proficient in a subject on a state standardized test. They say the current benchmarks are too high and the results often don’t accurately reflect whether high school students are college and career ready.

A plan to overhaul the way Illinois funds public universities is running into stiff opposition from the state’s largest higher education institution, the University of Illinois System.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s state budget proposal for 2026 would make another historic investment into public education, but uncertainty about the future of K-12 education funding still looms.

Gov. JB Pritzker has proposed continuing funding for a program aimed at getting more minority teachers in classrooms as a conservative legal strategist challenges the programs constitutionality in federal court.