May LM 2024_1

Message From the Executive Director Creating a Groundswell of Support for Vision 2030 Will Be Key to its Success

Dr. Brent Clark

ECRA is fine tuning the draft statements based off conversations from our meeting in May into an updated document that will be reviewed by the partner associations and sent to the governing boards of the participating associations to review and take a vote of support. If approved, beginning in August, the Vision 2030 partner organizations will take policy positions outlined by the Workgroup and begin to draft legislative proposals and formulate communications and marketing strategies. The goal will be to roll out the Vision 2030 final document at the Joint Annual Conference in November. That’s where we need your help and support. Local Boards of Education will be asked to review and approve Vision 2030 resolutions in late 2024 or early 2025. Doing so, we believe, will generate local news stories across our state that will send a message to legislators that school districts are once again rallying around a unified vision for public education. That won’t be all. IASA and partner organizations hope to engage active and retired members by asking them to write editorials. We are also looking to schedule a Capitol Lobby Day in February or March to take our message directly to members of the Illinois General Assembly. Other opportunities will present themselves as we move forward. This is an exciting time, and we have made significant progress to date. However, our work is far from over, in fact, it’s really just the beginning. Vision 2030 will be a yearslong process that will require continued advocacy and support from educators across our state. Just like for Vision 2020, we can create meaningful and lasting change to our public education system. Please join me, when the time comes, in building that groundswell of support.

One thing you can count on from legislators, no matter what party, is each of them will stay up to date on local news happening in the communities they represent. Back in 2016 when school boards across the state began passing resolutions in support of Vision 2020, the Illinois General Assembly took notice. IASA and the leaders of our partner organizations began fielding numerous questions from legislators, who had grown accustomed to statewide management associations letting them know what they oppose rather than what they stand for. Not wanting to be out of step with education leaders in their communities, lawmakers reached out interested in learning more about what Vision 2020 was all about. For Vision 2030 to be successful, we’re going to need to recreate that groundswell of support. Ten months ago, the Vision 2030 process was launched with the goal of creating a new decision-making framework that would effectively guide ongoing advocacy endeavors and foster unity among public educators. With the help of ECRA, our project design partner, the Vision 2030 Workgroup produced draft statements that will become the policy brief. The brief will generate legislative proposals that will become bills that we advocate for in the General Assembly. We also pressure tested the ideas in November when we sought feedback through a statewide survey. More than 1,000 educators weighed in, helping ensure we were articulating a new vision for public education in Illinois that everyone could once again get behind. Some key areas of focus have been around eliminating burdensome mandates, the promotion of dual credit opportunities, CTE expansion, licensure flexibility, a reformed assessment system, changes to summative designations and protecting the Evidence-Based Funding Formula.

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LM May 2024