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.
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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.
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.
Lawmakers did not pass 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.
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.
Western Illinois University faculty and staff are learning more about a new bill that has the potential to reshape how public universities in the Land of Lincoln are funded. Senate Bill 13 (SB13) and House Bill 1581 (HB1581) proposes a new funding system, the Adequate and Equitable Funding Formula.
The 21st Show’s series, “Four More Years”, featured panelists from Advance Illinois, Illinois Federation of Teachers, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in discussion on what the president-elect’s proposals and ideas for education reform could mean and how they could impact Illinois schools.
Even as advocates say more needs to be done to increase the number of teachers of color in classrooms, the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship program has become the target of a lawsuit claiming it discriminates against white students by limiting awards to Black, Latino, Asian American, and Native American students.
With budget forecasters predicting flat revenue growth over the next year and continued demands for increased spending in other areas of the budget such as pension costs and health care, members of the Illinois State Board of Education were told December 18 that they are now in a different fiscal environment.
To learn more about the Commission’s proposed changes, the legislative climate in Illinois, and the road to implementation, Bellwether spoke with leaders at Advance Illinois and the Partnership for College Completion.
An Illinois State Senate bill would dramatically change the way higher education is funded in the state. The bill, SB 3965, would create the Adequate and Equitable Public University Funding Act which would structure state higher education funding on a formula similar to that used to fund Illinois’ primary K-12 schools.
Legislators in Illinois have taken up the cause of getting more state funding for public higher education. Illinois State Senate Majority Leader Kimberly A. Lightford and Illinois State Representative Carol Ammons recently announced the filing of SB3965, the Adequate and Equitable Funding Formula for Public Universities Act.
Drafted to make college more accessible for Illinois students by increasing state funding to prevent tuition hikes and filling funding gaps between flagships and regional institutions, the bill would be one of the first of its kind in the nation if it ultimately passes.
State Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, and state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, held a press conference with education advocacy group Advance Illinois to discuss a bill they hope will create equitable funding making college more accessible.