New Illinois State Superintendent

Congratulations to Dr. Tony Sanders on his appointment to the role of State Superintendent! Tony is an incredible advocate for educational equity and a visionary leader and bridge-builder. We partnered with Tony as members of the Funding Illinois’ Future coalition during the years-long battle to overhaul Illinois’ outdated school funding system, and are confident that he will bring that same commitment to equitable school funding to his role.

Tony has served at the agency previously, successfully advocated for legislation to improve educational equity, enhanced communications and family engagement programs at his district, and managed the second-largest school district outside of Chicago. (All while building rapport with the students he serves at U-46 through, among other things, clever snow-day-related banter on social media.) Those past successes are demonstrative of Tony’s ability to bring people together to make progress, transcending politics and other things that keep us divided.

We are especially eager to partner with Tony on the literacy work that is underway at ISBE. The literacy crisis is urgent and solvable – but not without strong leadership from ISBE. Many states have undertaken literacy reform and perhaps the most critical factor as to whether those changes succeed has been the leadership from the states’ education agencies through implementation. ISBE held a literacy retreat on October 25, 2022 as a first step and has continued engaging stakeholders toward a comprehensive literacy plan.

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