A district leader discusses how adolescent brain development and screen use affect learning.

Hundreds of thousands of borrowers in Illinois, and millions more nationwide, need to select a new student loan repayment plan if they don’t want to end up on a more expensive plan by default.

Two elementary schools in East St. Louis School District 189 will be forced to scale back tutoring, before- and after-school programs as well as food and housing support for its most vulnerable families if federal funding is not restored by June 30.

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has proposed sweeping changes to Part 50 teacher evaluation rules that represent a fundamental shift away from educators and toward unilateral district control. Our position is that evaluation systems are subjective and therefore work best when they are collaborative, aligned to research-based best practices, and have checks and balances in place to mitigate bias and harm. After a decade of advocacy, in 2025, the IFT in coalition with other education stakeholders and allies in the General Assembly helped pass a law making the inclusion of student growth in teacher evaluations a district AND union decision. ISBE is proposing rules changes that contradict and undermine what is clearly stated in law. If adopted, these changes would undo hard-won protections that currently exist. WHAT’S AT STAKE: Educator voice is being cut out. Proposed changes sideline our unions and PERA Joint Committees - the very structures designed to ensure educators have a say in evaluation systems. Inclusion of student growth measures could be taken out of the hands of the local joint committee Statewide standards for evaluator training and qualification would be eliminated and replaced with inconsistent, district-controlled systems without independent oversight. The system will become less fair and more difficult to navigate. The reforms we’ve fought for - joint-decision making, preserving due process, maintaining statewide standards for evaluations - have made the evaluation process more fair, less punitive, and fully focused on improving teaching and learning. ISBE’s proposal threatens to reverse all of that. HOW YOU CAN HELP Please take a moment to write a letter to ISBE Supt. Dr. Tony Sanders, the Board, and the Rules Coordinator to tell them to protect educator voice, preserve statewide quality standards, and ensure that evaluation systems have checks and balances.

Western Illinois University claimed the library was not an academic program when it essentially was, an arbitrator has ruled, and therefore failed to follow the correct process for eliminating the jobs.