The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the Illinois educational workforce, creating a complex interplay between public health measures, individual autonomy, and union dynamics. This report, based on a survey of Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) members, highlights these multifaceted responses to vaccine mandates and the intricate position of teachers’ unions during these […]
Workers at Illinois’ public universities are earning between 14% and 20% less than their counterparts employed directly by state government agencies, according to a first-of-its-kind study released by the Project for Middle Class Renewal (PMCR) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois Economic Policy Institute (ILEPI).Read full report here.
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) mandated the educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), a performance-based assessment to evaluate teaching readiness, as a licensure requirement since July 2015. In the previous reports, we find that edTPA had negative impacts on new teachers and their students in Illinois. This report seeks to generalize the findings to […]
In 2015 Illinois mandated the education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), a performance-based assessment to evaluate teaching readiness, as a part of the teacher licensure requirements. The new requirement aimed to benefit student learning by improving the teaching effectiveness of prospective teachers. This report estimates the effect of teachers hired after 2015 when edTPA was implemented […]
The Illinois State Broad of Education (ISBE) mandated Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), a performance-based assessment to evaluate teaching readiness, as a part of the licensure requirements since July 2015. The new examination imposed significant monetary ($300-$1,200 per applicant) and time investments, which had a disproportionate effect on minority prospective teacher candidates. The impact of the […]
More than two million children attend over 3,800 public schools in 852 local school districts across Illinois. Nearly all of these districts have collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) that determine the terms and conditions of employment. This study evaluates 543 collective bargaining agreements across Illinois, representing nearly two-thirds of all school district CBAs. While labor agreements […]
In 2014, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) adopted a system-wide Student Based Budgeting model for determining individual school budgets. Our report examines the impact of Student Based Budgeting. Our findings show that CPS’ putatively color-blind Student Based Budgeting reproduces racial inequality by concentrating low budget public schools almost exclusively in Chicago’s Black neighborhoods. The clustering of […]
While equitable funding of K-12 public school has become an acute issue in many states, Illinois ranks among the most inequitable in its mechanisms for dispersing revenues to school districts. Illinois property taxes are the primary means for financing schools. However, due to very low state general aid, many property owners pay very high property […]
International surveys conducted by the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) found that teachers in their union suffer significantly from stress (ETUCE, 2011). Furthermore, survey data in the United States reveals that teaching is a “high stress” profession (Kyriacou, 2000). The harm caused by this stress is evident by the high rates of teacher […]
Investing in higher education is a smart economic development policy that boosts incomes, supports employment, and grows the economy. Illinois has world-class public universities and community colleges that serve as economic engines in local communities. The recent budget crisis in Illinois, however, had negative impacts on public universities and community colleges in the state. This […]