The Illinois legislative session wrapped up in early hours of Sunday morning after some long, late nights. It was in these final hours that a budget package came together during an especially difficult year of revenue challenges. And we’ve seen a lot of education wins and movement toward progress this session. Here’s a recap of some key pieces of legislation and budget highlights that moved this year:
- No school-based municipal tickets. SB 1519 (Villa/Ford) prohibits municipal ticketing as a disciplinary consequence in Illinois schools.
- Professional development aligned to the literacy plan. HB 1368 (Faver Dias/Lightford) ensures professional development activities related to literacy instruction are aligned to the evidence-based strategies defined in ISBE’s Comprehensive Literacy Plan.
- Literacy screening data. SB 1672 (Belt/Mussman) requires school districts to report what early literacy screeners they use, how often, and what skill areas are measured with each. This data will help us understand the holistic picture of a fundamental component of high-quality literacy instruction.
- Right to public education regardless of citizenship. HB 3247 (Jimenez/Villa) supports all students to receive a free public education regardless of their or their family’s perceived or actual citizenship status.
- $307 million for Evidence-Based Funding. Though we wish we could share even better news, we acknowledge this was a tough budget year and appreciate that the budget still found $300 million to bring schools closer to full funding. The $50 million property tax relief grants, which are a component of EBF, are paused this year. (The extra $7 million are for alternative schools.)
- $1.5 million for literacy plan implementation and the development of a numeracy plan. This is $1.5 million dollars less than the ISBE-recommended $3 million dollar appropriation. This is disappointing news, knowing that $3 million was an already modest appropriation, but we hope this funding can still help districts make small steps toward high-quality literacy and numeracy instruction across the state.
Thank you so much for all of your emails, witness slips, petition signatures, and social media outreach to support these endeavors! Each education win we see is only possible because of advocates like you. We will not slow our fight to creating a better future for our students and will continue to advocate for strong legislation and funding in Illinois.