Statements
Please find our latest statements below.
Advance Illinois Statement on the 2024 Illinois Report Card
There is good news and bad news in the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)’s 2024 Illinois Report Card. It is encouraging to see improvements in student learning, growth, and achievement, with some measures exceeding pre-pandemic levels. However, recovery from the pandemic and disparities among underrepresented student groups across the K-12 continuum persist and will require ongoing attention and effort.
“The progress we’re seeing for Illinois’ students is encouraging, but this new data reminds us that we still have real work to do to fully recover from COVID and close stubborn and unacceptable gaps,” said Robin Steans, President of Advance Illinois.
Points of Good News
Following setbacks in reading and math proficiency during the pandemic, student proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA) has made noticeable gains. Students in grades 3-8 achieved a proficiency rate of 41.2%, the highest since 2019. Indeed, the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) ELA proficiency rates now exceed pre-pandemic levels for all race/ethnicity groups, which is wonderful to see.
However, not all grade levels experienced this progress. The Report Card reveals that ELA proficiency on the IAR has not yet surpassed pre-pandemic levels for grades 3 and 7. Meanwhile, Math proficiency rates improved slightly from last year, but remain down – in some cases significantly – from pre-pandemic levels across groups and grade levels. Indeed, grade 3 dropped from 33% in 2023 to 27.8% in 2024, representing a significant drop from the pre-pandemic 2019 proficiency of 40.1%. These 3rd-grade students faced learning disruptions during the pandemic, impacting language, literacy, and math, and there is still work ahead to support ongoing recovery. We commend the statewide focus on improving literacy with the Illinois Comprehensive Literacy Plan and look forward to ISBE’s forthcoming statewide math and numeracy plan.
This year’s Report Card includes data from the 2023-2024 Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS), and we are pleased to have this important window into where children were developmentally as they entered kindergarten last school year. According to a report from the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative (IWERC), KIDS scores help predict 3rd-grade proficiency in Math and English Language Arts (ELA). So it is good news that the percentage of students demonstrating readiness in all three developmental areas—social and emotional development, language and literacy development, and math—has increased statewide over the past few years, including from 29.9% in 2022 to 31.6% in 2023. That said, gaps in readiness persist across lines of race, income, language, and learning style. It is encouraging that student participation in this key critical survey is growing (from 86.7% in 2022 to 90.9% in 2023) and that readiness is gradually increasing overall; however, persistent gaps require further work and study.
It is also wonderful to see the highest graduation rate for Illinois’ high school students 14 years at 87.7%, and to note that all groups improved here and gaps across groups narrowed slightly. Additionally, 9th-grade On Track rates, strong predictors of high school graduation, continue to improve. This key indicator increased slightly from 87.4% in SY23 to 88.2% in SY24 and remains higher than pre-pandemic, with all groups seeing improvements. That said, while they did not worsen, significant gaps between student groups persist, most notably between Black students (79.7%), English Learners (79.7%), and white students (92.7%). More work is needed to ensure all students have the supports and resources to succeed.
The Report Card provides reasons to be hopeful about students’ academic recovery, a testament to the hard work of our educators, the important aid provided by federal stimulus dollars, and targeted initiatives ISBE and districts have put in place to accelerate learning renewal. However, we have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in every area or grade level (high school also continues to be an area of concern), and racial, ethnic, and income disparities across these and other measures require ongoing attention and investment.
What We’re Zeroing in On
Equity gaps continue to exist across many areas. While gaps between Black students, Latinx students, low-income students, English Learners, and students with an IEP have decreased since 2019, they persist. While Illinois’ overall high school graduation rate is historically high and has improved across the board, rates were 7% lower for Black students (80.7%), 15.2% lower for students with an IEP (72.5%), and 2.6% lower for Latinx students (85.1%). As we applaud ISBE’s efforts to accelerate student recovery, with the expiration of ESSER funds, investments in the Evidence-Based Funding (EBF) formula remain key in directing resources to school districts and students that need them most.
Finally, but critically, while all groups saw a slight improvement, chronic absenteeism remains a concern, where rates of missing 10 percent or more of school remain stubbornly and disproportionately high for some student groups. Overall rates decreased slightly to 26.3% in 2024 (still well above pre-pandemic/SY19 levels (17.5%), but Black students continue to have the highest chronic absenteeism rates (40.4%), followed by Latinx students (32.9%). Students from low-income households (36.3%), English Learners (32.1%), and students with IEPs (33.6%) also continue to have high chronic absenteeism rates. While rates are slowly improving, students are missing critical instruction time, impacting their academic success in both the short and long term.
Supporting Our Teachers to Support Our Students
Research underscores the importance of teacher attendance and diversity on student outcomes. Regrettably, this latest Report Card indicates no significant improvement in teacher attendance (the percent of teachers missing 10 days or less of school), which remains at a worrisome 66%. However, we are pleased to see that the total number of teachers increased by about 2,100 in 2024—hiring that reflects the longstanding understaffing most schools have endured due to chronic underfunding. But as we know, a shortage exists, especially in bilingual and special education, and in rural and urban areas. Therefore, we must continue to invest in our educator pipeline and we commend ISBE for programs like CTE Education Career Pathways Grants, which prepare high school students for teaching careers, and the state’s new teacher recruitment marketing campaign, ‘The Answer Is Teaching,’ which has garnered high interest and activity. While teacher diversity continues to increase slowly, with growing Black (6.4%), Asian (2%), and Latinx (8.9%) representation, supporting a diverse teacher workforce is crucial. Programs like CTE Education Career Pathway Grants, Illinois Virtual Coach and Building Mentor Program, affinity groups, and the Minority Teachers of Illinois (MTI) Scholarship are in place to recruit and retain excellent teachers that represent student diversity. [NOTE: The MTI Scholarship program, which helps support candidates of color, is now the subject of a lawsuit. This is disheartening, as research makes clear that students of color do better—academically and otherwise—when they are taught by educators of color. MTI has helped the state increase the diversity of its pipeline, rounding out a wide array of state programs designed to strengthen the overall pipeline.]
New Additions for the Report
Recognizing the unique experiences and identities of individuals of Middle Eastern or North African descent, ISBE is beginning to incorporate a new race/ethnicity category to capture these students and educators, abbreviated MENA.
Also new is the Support Personnel Full-Time Equivalence (FTE), defined as employees with one or more active employment records, working during the regular school year (not summer school), and holding one of the approved Support Personnel position codes (School Counselor, School Nurse, School Psychologist, and School Social Worker). For this year, the state is reporting 494 students per counselor; 1,520 students per nurse; 885 students per psychologist; and 432 students per social worker. While these are higher than recommended ratios, they indicate marked improvement. In 2018, the state had 667 students per counselor, 1,201 students per psychologist, and 697 students per social worker. Advance Illinois has been reporting on these ratios for many years in our biennial “State We’re In” report on public education. We are elated to see this important data now included in the state report card, as we believe it will and should help spur conversation and action at both the local and state levels to ensure all schools have an adequate support personnel workforce to meet student needs.
In Closing
While there are encouraging signs and areas of improvement, it is going to take more support and investment to achieve academic outcomes that exceed pre-pandemic levels. We recognize the tough budget climate and appreciate past increases in funding (which have helped drive student recovery), but we must keep working to ensure that all Illinois students have what they need to thrive.
Advance Illinois Applauds Filing of SB3965 as Next Key Step in a More Student-Centered Higher Education System
Advance Illinois is delighted to celebrate the filing of SB3965, creating a funding formula for the state’s public universities. This groundbreaking bill puts Illinois’ public universities on a path to adequacy, equity, and sustainability.
Grounded in the Commission on Equitable Public University Funding’s recommendations, released this March, the bill sets forth a blueprint to improve how the state funds its public universities, marking an important next step as Illinois works to build a stronger, healthier postsecondary landscape for students across the state who seek a college degree.
“For too long, earning a college degree at our state schools has been inaccessible for too many Illinois students,” said Robin Steans, President of Advance Illinois.
The recommendations released by the 33-member Commission outline a funding formula that would set Illinois apart from other states. By centering student-need, taking institutional mission and size into account, and considering what students can and should pay in tuition and fees, the formula puts earning a college degree within reach of all Illinois students.
“The research is clear, a college degree continues to be the surest path toward greater economic mobility, and importantly, to intergenerational wealth,” Steans said. “To ensure every Illinois student can access that path, every public university must have the resources they need to serve the students they enroll. If we do this right, not only will students thrive, but the state will benefit as well.”
Advance Illinois applauds bill co-sponsors, Illinois Senate Majority Leader Kimberly A. Lightford and Representative Carol Ammons, for their continued leadership in holding our state accountable for how well and how justly it supports its public universities and in turn, their students. Advance Illinois joins college access and success organizations, civil rights groups and other advocates in the field in celebrating this critical step, and looks forward to the work ahead to see this through.
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Advance Illinois is an independent, bipartisan policy and advocacy organization working toward a healthy public education system that enables all students to achieve success in college, career, and civic life.
Advance Illinois Applauds State’s Establishment of a Unified Agency for Early Childhood
Today, Advance Illinois applauds Governor Pritzker for signing the historic SB1 into law, creating the state’s first Department of Early Childhood. This new agency will unify early childhood programs and services, establishing a system that is easier for families and providers to navigate and enhancing the state’s ability to identify and address gaps and challenges.
“This is truly an historic moment for the state and its children! The new agency will enable the state to focus more efficiently, effectively, and strategically on how best to serve Illinois's youngest learners and families,” said Robin Steans, President of Advance Illinois. “This will help give every child from birth through age 5 a strong start to thrive well into the future.”
Last fall, the field celebrated the Governor’s vision for a single unified agency as overdue and deeply needed. In the Commission on Equitable Early Childhood Education and Care's 2021 report, the group described the burdensome nature of delivering early childhood programs and services out of three separate agencies— the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), and Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). As outlined by Early Childhood Transition Director Ann Whalen, bringing early childhood’s governance into one structure will reduce burdens and complexity for providers and parents; create greater access to quality providers in all regions of the state; and expand access to support more children in achieving kindergarten readiness.
Early childhood programs and services will continue to be administered through their respective legacy agencies until July 1, 2026. In the interim, the newly-formed department will use its Transition Advisory Committee to engage parents and providers in understanding what changes the new agency can and should consider to reduce burdens and improve services and outcomes.
Advance Illinois celebrates the administration and members of the General Assembly, including Senate Leader Kimberly A. Lightford, Representative Mary Beth Canty, and Representative Joyce Mason for their leadership in stewarding this important step forward for Illinois families with young children. By addressing the structural issues related to program and service delivery in early childhood, Illinois is centering the needs of families and providers with a larger vision in mind: to provide equitable and coherent access to high-quality early childhood education and care for all Illinois children from birth to age five. Advance Illinois looks forward to supporting the administration in the agency’s launch and continued collaboration with partners to ensure its success in transforming the early childhood education and care ecosystem in Illinois.
Put simply, said Steans, “Governor Pritzker pledged to make Illinois the best state in the nation to raise a family. The creation of a new Department of Early Childhood is another important step in making good on that promise.”
Advance Illinois Statement Regarding FY25 Budget
The Illinois General Assembly today passed a budget for FY25 that considers education but leaves gaps in key areas of need for children, students, and the systems designed to support them.
“If budgets reflect priorities, it is clear that the General Assembly understands the importance of investing in the next generation, even as it has left some important work undone,” said Robin Steans, President of Advance Illinois.
Taking Steps Forward in Improving Illinois’ Early Childhood System with Glaring Opportunities for More Strategic Investment
Learning begins at birth and sets the course for a child’s long-term growth and development, so we are pleased that the legislature continues to prioritize early childhood programs. The new budget provides increases for critical early childhood programs such as the Early Childhood Block Grant, home visiting, and Smart Start workforce grants. That said, still greater investment is needed for programs such as Early Intervention, which ensures families can access key services for young children who are at risk of or experiencing developmental delays.
As we celebrate the passage of SB1, which creates the Department of Early Childhood and the $14.2 million appropriated to fund its first year, we challenge legislators to do more to grow the pipeline into the early childhood profession in order to realize progress and impact. The state’s $5 million investment in ECACE, a scholarship program that helps working adults access higher education and complete early childhood education degrees and credentials, is simply not enough. Indeed, the investment – far short of the $28.6 million agencies requested – will leave roughly 2,400 early childhood educators without financial support to complete their programs. This, to say the least, is an incredible missed opportunity: Diminished funding for this scholarship runs counter to the state’s significant efforts to support a stronger, more equitable system that reaches more children and families!
Strengthening Opportunities and Outcomes in Higher Education
This spring, Illinois continued efforts to expand access to earning a college degree in-state, but they were decidedly more muted. The legislature’s measured 1% increase to MAP ($10M) and 2% increase to institutional general operating funding (nearly $40M) follow more significant increases in recent years. We hope and expect that greater increases are ahead, including when the state adopts a more adequate, equitable, and stable funding formula, as recommended by the Commission for Equitable Public University Funding.
Supporting K-12 School Districts
While we, together with many educators and advocates across the state, know a $550 million increase to the Evidence-Based Funding formula (EBF) will bring every school district to full funding faster, lawmakers approved a $350 million increase to the school funding formula for FY25. EBF continues to be instrumental in directing resources to schools, districts and students that need them most. Although data indicate that Illinois students are beginning to recover academically from the pandemic's disruptions, we are not yet to pre-pandemic academic proficiency, recovery is uneven, disparities persist, ESSER funds are nearly gone, and there is still a long way to go in supporting student well-being. The state must lean into EBF investments that go beyond the minimum funding level if it is to meet these challenges in earnest.
Investing in the Whole Child
As communities continue to recover from COVID disruptions, the need to understand and be responsive to student mental health has become even more urgent. We appreciate that the General Assembly appropriated modest funding for Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing (REACH) and SEL Hubs, programs designed to ensure all Illinois students and educators attend trauma-informed, resilient schools. These key investments are essential to supporting student well-being, which in turn helps students and schools thrive academically and beyond. That said, the funding provided in this budget falls far below the level of federal funding allocated to these projects in recent years. Indeed, these significant reductions will limit the number of schools that will benefit from these programs in FY25, if not sufficiently supplemented with extended ESSER funds. However, one important piece of good news is that the FY25 budget provides $250,000 for Illinois to develop a Children's Adversity Index that will give the state a first-ever window into trauma exposure at the local level—information that will help identify community and district needs and help direct resources, training, and support.
Strengthening Our Schools through Our Educator Pipeline, Key Early Career Supports Missing
As teacher and staff shortages continue to plague many schools and districts, the Illinois State Board of Education is to be commended for the strides it has taken to strengthen and diversify its educator workforce. But that effort depends on stable support from Springfield. We are pleased to see the legislature continue to a make strong investment ($8 million) in the Minority Teachers of Illinois scholarship program (MTI), which helps support candidates of color access the preparation needed to become teachers. Further, we applaud continued investments in the Teacher Loan Repayment program and principal recruitment, as well as uptake of previously ESSER-funded affinity groups as a state funded item. That said, resources for teacher and principal mentoring are nowhere in the budget, despite the important work these initiatives do preparing new educators for the demands of their roles and bolstering early career retention. These programs, currently supported through expiring ESSER dollars, must continue, especially as the state continues offering expanded routes into the classroom that require minimal to no preparation through provisional and short-term approvals, short-cuts that underscore the need to support new teachers.
Looking Forward, Difficult Choices Ahead
Amid a tough budget environment, we recognize the difficult decisions our legislators had to make to advance a budget, and we appreciate the important new investments in critical and foundational programs and budget lines. But with critical gaps in support for new teachers and principals, and insufficient funding to support student well-being and learning recovery, the impact of those decisions will now be passed to district leaders. Challenging choices lie ahead. So while we extend our gratitude to the General Assembly for the budget it has approved, we resolve to continue fighting. We will continue working alongside advocates and partners across the B-20 continuum to identify investments that sustain, strengthen, and accelerate our path to better opportunities and outcomes. Our choices as a state have real and lasting consequences for children, students and families.
Advance Illinois Full Statement on Equitable Funding Commission Recommendations
Advance Illinois applauds the Commission on Equitable Public University for releasing a blueprint for how Illinois can realize an adequate, equitable, and sustainable approach to support its public universities.
“This blueprint represents more than two years of analyzing the complexities of higher education funding,” said Robin Steans, President of Advance Illinois and a member of the Commission. “These recommendations reflect deep research, analysis and listening to the field undertaken by Commissioners, and we think this charts a strong, equitable path forward for students and the institutions that serve them.”
Established in 2021, the Commission was created by PA 102-0570 in response to significant disparities in college access, affordability, and degree attainment that exist across universities, and across demographic lines of geography, race, ethnicity, and income. The 33-member Commission of agency heads, legislators, university leaders, and community partners were charged with developing a model for funding the state’s public universities in an adequate, equitable, and stable manner. As rightly highlighted in the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s strategic plan (A Thriving Illinois), such an approach is fundamental to cultivating a healthier university system where strong outcomes follow sufficient, equitable, and predictable state investment in institutions.
Under the proposed new approach, the state would use a new methodology to determine how much funding each institution needs to serve its student population and run its unique set of programs. Once this “adequacy target” has been identified, new state funds would be directed to the state's public universities in an effort to help those institutions furthest from adequacy close those gaps. According to the report, this new approach:
Determines for each institution a unique funding level based on its students' needs, mission, and variety of programs.
Encourages greater access and success for historically underrepresented students.
Provides a funding increase to every institution when new dollars are invested.
Ensures institutions have flexibility to invest in ways that best serve their students.
Incentivizes institutions to reduce reliance on student tuition and increases state investment.
Distributes new funding equitably and according to need.
Calls for transparency and increased accountability as institutions get closer to adequate funding.
With the Commission recommendations now submitted to the General Assembly, the next stage of this work begins. Higher education continues to create powerful opportunities for students and for states. Advance Illinois urges Governor Pritzker and legislators to move with intent to translate the Commission’s recommendations into action. In doing so, Illinois will set the standard for investing in its people and its future.
“The research continues to affirm that earning a college degree is a game changer for families, communities, and the state,” Steans said. “Supporting investments and evidence-based policy actions that allow every student, regardless of race and income, to access the intergenerational benefits of a college degree is an investment our state cannot afford not to make.”