In the News
Advance Illinois serves as a resource for media outlets from across the state and beyond on policy issues in education from birth to career. Here’s our recent coverage.
Years of cuts and a state budget impasse caused students to look for colleges and universities outside of Illinois to further their education, with many even making the unfortunate decision not to go to college at all.
Illinois lawmakers are debating a bill that would pay student teachers as they’re learning to teach students.
A pair of competing bills in the House would, for the first time in Illinois, offer state-funded stipends for student teachers. Supporters of the idea say it’s needed to ease some of the financial burden on teachers-in-training, which some argue is one source of the state’s teacher shortage.
The state’s funding model for public universities needs an overhaul, a report from a commission created by the Illinois General Assembly concluded.
Illinois lawmakers have a new road map to fund public colleges and universities across the state. The Illinois Commission on Equitable Public University Funding released its recommendations Wednesday.
A state commission created in 2021 has issued a new report calculating that public universities in Illinois are underfunded by approximately $1.4 billion.
For the past six years, the state has mostly upheld an agreement to pay 350 million dollars into k through 12 each year.
But advocates say the state should consider upping that annual contribution to help schools reach full funding faster.
WNIJ's Peter Medlin spoke with commission member & Advance Illinois president Robin Steans about what that would mean for students.
The fastest-growing group of students in the state often do not have equal access to the education afforded to English-proficient students because there simply aren't enough teachers with the specialized knowledge and skills to effectively teach these students in both their home language and English.
The Illinois State Board of Education is aiming high in its request for more taxpayer funding in the next fiscal year.
The Illinois State Board of Education is proposing a $653 million increase to the state’s education budget, bringing the overall budget for next school year to $11 billion. The proposal — less than what advocates pushed for during hearings in the fall — is ultimately voted on by state lawmakers.
The Illinois State Board of Education endorsed a budget request Wednesday that includes a $653 million increase in funding for PreK-12 public schools. It’s a request that lawmakers may find hard to accommodate in a year when the state faces a projected $891 million budget deficit.
When discussing the educator workforce shortages in Illinois, it is evident that the challenges our education system faces are complex. We must address this issue with urgency.
Teachers often leave due to poor working conditions and inadequate support from school leaders. Investing in capable school leaders is vital for retaining high-quality educators, while effective district leaders play a key role in empowering principals.
Will County educators recently got an in-depth look at the question of whether Illinois has enough teachers. Advance Illinois, a policy and advocacy group that focuses on public education, presented the findings of its study titled “The State of Our Educator Pipeline 2023” to local educators Nov. 30 in Joliet.
Decades of research show that students being taught by a diverse teacher workforce improves educational outcomes, especially for students of color.
The educational symptoms of the COVID disruptions are still noticeable in Springfield School District 186, where the district generally did not perform as well as the state average in several categories on the ISBE Report Card. But District 186 officials note that progress is being made in key areas, and that upward trajectory is a better measure of what is occurring in Springfield's schools.
Gov. JB Pritzker announced the 18 members of the new Early Childhood Education and Care Transition Advisory Committee on Tuesday.
Labor shortages are not unique to the educator workforce, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, but teacher Bob Chikos said the shortages aren’t as black-and-white as some people may think.
Advance Illinois, a bipartisan education policy and advocacy organization, produced the report and hosted the event in partnership with Collinsville District 10, the Illinois Education Association and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville to foster conversation at the local level.