Illinois Families for Public Schools

Public education is on the ballot in November as Chicago votes on our first elected school board! We're excited to join State Representative Lindsey LaPointe, Senator Robert Martwick and Committeeperson Michael Rabbitt for Dems 45 learning forum tomorrow night. No matter where you live in the city, come on out and be a well-informed voter this fall.

We'll be talking about the legislation that created the Elected School Board districts, the seats on the November 5th general election ballot, the mayoral appointment process for the remaining positions, what to expect going forward and more...

“Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) thought it was buying the future of education. Instead, it got a $6 million lesson in the dangers of AI illiteracy. Just three months after unveiling its AI chatbot ‘Ed,’ LAUSD's tech dreams have come crashing down. AllHere, the company behind Ed, has collapsed, leaving the district with a half-baked tool and serious questions about student data privacy.
AllHere's dramatic fall comes on the heels of numerous industry accolades. In April, TIME magazine named the company among the world's top edtech firms. That same month, Inc. Magazine lauded founder Joanna Smith-Griffin as a global K-12 education leader in artificial intelligence. Now, barely two months later, Smith-Griffin has left her role as CEO, and the company has furloughed most of its staff due to financial difficulties.”

LAUSD's $6 Million AllHere Fiasco: A Cautionary Tale of AI Hype Over Literacy Maybe it was a failure to understand the fundamental limitations of current AI technology. Or perhaps it was sheer hubris. Whatever the reason, LAUSD's AI illiteracy led to a cascade of spectacularly poor decisions.

During the summer months, CPS will offer free nutritious meals to students & children 18 & under through summer programs & LunchStop locations across the District starting June 24, 2024 https://bit.ly/3xidFwh

Find your nearest meal distribution site at https://bit.ly/3Xgx2hy

NEW! The Illinois General Assembly’s Spring Session wrapped up last week—find out where the bills and issues on our legislative agenda landed.

Plus...ICYMI: IL is switching to ACT for high school tests, and yes, ACT, Inc sells student data too. Take action with us!

Dust settles on Spring Session: What bills moved and what didn't? Taking action for the public good

We’ve got work to do in Illinois too! Take a minute to help protect students across our state—email the Illinois State Board of Education and the State Superintendent: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-isbe-no-act-data-sales

Don’t allow ACT, Inc. to sell student data.

Thanks for sharing Network for Public Education - NPE.

Grassroots Education Network- May 2024 Newsletter - Network For Public Education The Grassroots Newsletter highlights the amazing work of many of over 195 advocacy groups that have joined us in the fight for public education.

🚨 CPS selective schools disproportionately hurt Black & Latino students. HB 303 would lock-in this inequity until at least Feb. 2027 by blocking the district’s ability to budget more equitably and more fairly.

The bill passed the IL House and is being considered in the Senate. Urge your state senator to OPPOSE HB 303 and vote NO if it goes to a vote. The Chicago Board of Education should be supported in their policy and budgeting changes as they attempt to remedy decades of racial, economic and educational inequity by supporting all public schools across the city. Updated fact sheet to share: https://bit.ly/HB303info

For more info check out yesterday's Axios Chicago/ Monica Eng's story which highlights that the demographics at CPS' consistently top performing high schools do not reflect district racial demographics: https://www.axios.com/local/chicago/2024/05/22/cps-high-school-racial-demographics-disparity

"Selective and magnet schools were meant, in part, to improve racial integration, but in recent years, Black and white segregation has ballooned at these CPS high schools and nationwide.

Segregated schools disproportionately hurt Black and Latino students, because those schools tend to have fewer resources, more teacher shortages, higher student-to-school counselor ratios, and fewer AP class options."

☎️ Calls needed today (May 22) on police in CPS schools, air quality & funding equity! The Illinois House and Senate are both in session today and these else could be voted on. Leave a message if you don’t get through to a human.

Details at https://www.ilfps.org/springfield_update_calls_needed_on_sros_and_air_quality_bills

ACT will be new IL high school test — ISBE and the IL Attorney General shouldn’t let them sell student data! Learn more and take action!👇

Last week the Illinois State Board of Education announced that it is now official, the state will be switching back to ACT for the high school test for 11th graders, and it will be a graduation requirement for public schools. Other ACT, Inc. tests will be administered for 9th and 10th grades.

Unfortunately, the change from the SAT suite of tests to the ACT won’t end the issue of illegal sales of student data by test vendors. ACT, Inc. also sells test data, just like the College Board does.

Check out our latest update for some quick action steps to take today! 👉 https://www.ilfps.org/act_new_state_test

Thanks for your advocacy!

Illinois has one of the strongest laws in the country protecting the privacy and security of our public school students’ personal data. Unfortunately, the IL State Board of Education has let a major state vendor, the College Board, violate that law for years by selling student data.

Now ISBE is about to switch to a new vendor for annual high school testing, ACT, Inc. We need to ensure that ISBE doesn't allow ACT, Inc. to sell student data under this new contract.

You can use this link to email the State Board's members and the State Superintendent:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-isbe-no-act-data-sales

Recently the New York State Attorney General cracked down on illegal data sales there. Illinois students should have the same protections as New York students! State vendors should follow state law.

Tell IL's AG: No more College Board data sales! Illinois has one of the strongest laws in the country protecting the privacy and security of our public school students’ personal data. Unfortunately, the IL State Board of Education has let a major state vendor, the College Board, violate that law for years by selling student data. Now ISBE is ab...

ICYMI: "No More Student Data Sales!" webinar recordings and more are available! Thanks to all the parents & students from across the nation who joined us last week to learn about how College Board and ACT are illegally profiting off of student data sales and how to stop them.

Virtual Forum: No More Student Data Sales recordings
• Part I with presentation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bx4_5f6Z1Vo
• Part II with Q and A: https://youtube.com/watch?v=pcIT_xj-rYU

Our spreadsheet with links to state laws where student data sales are illegal for school vendors here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FXSfgBd2ZsbffOqvXuevmAypNZMOPB15/edit =145092262

Here's a template letter that you can use to write to your State Attorney General urging them to stop these vendors from selling student data in violation of your state law, as the NY AG did: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PoRL6cKjNH9YRaZPQCpdcVyeB5QSUiNDqhLZJ7-Dlrs

If you're an Illinois resident, here's our form to write to the Illinois AG, Kwame Raoul asking him to enforce Illinois’ state student privacy law and stop test companies from illegally selling student data in Illinois: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-ils-ag-no-more-college-board-data-sales/

Email [email protected] w/any questions! And reach out if your state doesn't have a law prohibiting student data sales or allows data sales with student consent, but without specifying the age of that student. We'll help file a FERPA complaint to the US Department of Ed.

Be sure to follow co-sponsors Parent Coalition for Student Privacy and Class Size Matters for more.

📣Action Alert—Call your IL State Representative: OPPOSE HB 5008 (chief sponsor Rep Mary Gill) bill to allow LSCs to contract with Chicago Police Dept for SROs. It is scheduled for a “second reading” in the IL House today. The full chamber must vote to pass the bill to a “third reading”. HB5008 undermines student-led movement that has pushed to remove police from CPS schools. Find your rep here: bit.ly/ilgalookup. Safe schools are important to everyone, and police officers stationed in schools simply do not further that goal.

You can also contact House Dem leaders to ask them to oppose this bill: Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch - (217) 782-5350 and Leader Rep Robyn Gabel - (217) 782-8052

The language of HB 5008 does not place any restrictions or regulations on such contracts (e.g. number of officers, training of officers) and does not specify how officers would be funded. While district-level contracts between CPD and CPS have gotten more restrictive in recent years, this law does nothing to keep those protections, possibly creating an anything-goes in terms of what school-level agreements w/ CPD look like.

Stationing police officers in schools harms the safety, security and the educational experience of students, in particular Black and Latinx students, low-income students, students with disabilities and LGBTQ+ students.

And, data collected on students by police in schools, i.e. surveillance by SROs, is NOT protected by federal & state student privacy law (FERPA, ISSRA) like other education information. Parents/students over 18 have no control or access to it.

Legislators need to hear from folks who oppose the IL GA overruling a local district decision AND allowing law-enforcement officers in Chicago Public Schools. The research is clear—the SAFEST schools for ALL students are schools WITHOUT police stationed in them.

TONIGHT: How to stop your kids' data from being sold
Register: http://bit.ly/5_6_24_webinar

Test companies like the College Board and ACT, Inc. are illegally profiting from sales of students’ personal data. Learn about how these data sales were stopped in New York State and what we can do to push other states to end this practice too.

Join us for a Virtual Forum - Mon, May 6 2024, 8pm ET
Register online at: https://bit.ly/5_6_24_webinar

Please visit our event page for more info: https://www.ilfps.org/no_more_student_data_sales

Sponsored by Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, Illinois Families for Public Schools, and Class Size Matters

DePaul University College of Education Spring Forum 2024: Educating for Democracy in a Contentious Election Year! How can educators respond? Next Thursday, May 9th, 5:30 - 7pm CT

For more info and registration: https://bit.ly/3UDto1D

A US national election is unfolding in the midst of rapidly increasing political polarization. Many Americans think democracy is at risk. For others, beliefs about the importance of democracy and trust in the government are at all-time lows.

This contentious election year provides an opportunity to explore questions such as: What does it mean to educate for democracy and why is this critically important during these times? How do we help students understand democratic values, how a democracy functions and how it impacts their lives? How can we prepare students to be informed and engaged citizens? What can that look like in middle and high school classes? In elementary grades? Across subject matter? In different communities with divergent values, norms, and school cultures? How can educators develop a civic culture in the classroom and school and encourage deep discussion of controversial issues? What are the questions and ethical issues confronting educators as they prepare for these discussions?

The DePaul College of Education Spring Forum will explore these issues and others. Dr. Hilary Conklin will moderate the forum. For questions and more information, please contact Diane Horwitz, Coordinator for the Education Issues Forums, at [email protected].

Two veteran journalists on the Chicago public ed beat, Becky Vevea and Sarah Karp, said on Twitter that their FOIA requests for school-by-school budget numbers were denied by the Chicago Public Schools FOIA Office.

https://twitter.com/beckyvevea/status/1783958435660177526
https://twitter.com/SSKedreporter/status/1784034751126315223

The reason given was that these budgets are not final and therefore should not be made public.

In fact all of these budgets ARE public because in school communities around the city, these proposed budgets are currently under PUBLIC discussion at local school council budget meetings because LSCs must soon vote on them.

This is a politically-motivated FOIA denial. CPS does not want to be transparent about school-by-school budget numbers.

This transparency has frequently happened in the past (as those of us who have been advocating in CPS budget fights over many years know!)

Particularly in a year where the funding model is shifting significantly for a large portion of what is allocated to schools, transparency on these numbers is important---even from the perspective of an individual school. e.g. Did the district make an arithmetic error in assigning the school a certain amount of teachers/dollars? Do they not know something about the incoming SPED student population in terms of services that the principal does and should appeal? Is the shortfall you are facing something that all schools of similar need ("Opportunity Index score") are also facing? Was your Opportunity Index score itself inaccurate?

LSC members, public school families, community members should have access to this information on a districtwide basis in order to play an informed role in the budget process that is playing out in LSCs leading up to their budget vote which must take place by the end of this week.

Why is the district stonewalling? Why are they violating the letter and the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act?

This is bad governance. And in light of the legislative fights happening in Springfield over the Chicago Board of Education's actions (see HB 303, which passed two weeks ago, and HB 5008, which will likely be voted on this week), it is also bad politics.

Legislators cannot take seriously a claim that the Board should be trusted to do the right thing when there is this glaring case of not doing the right thing, which then obliterates the very legitimate policy concerns about these two bad bills in a political fight.

In addition to reaching out to your legislators asking them to oppose HB 5008 (state reps) and HB 303 (state senators), please call the Chicago Board of Ed (773-553-1600) & CEO (773-553-1500) & ask them to fulfill the transparency needed to support DEMOCRACY at the local school council level and the state legislative level by sharing full details on school budgets.

Chicago is using $5 million in pandemic relief money to offer one-time, $500 grants to low-income families of students with disabilities.

Grants will be awarded through a lottery system. Apply online at http://AdaMOPD.com or can text “AdaMOPD” to (877) 478-1359.

Applications are open through 10/30/24.

Note: *This* pandemic relief money is the city's American Rescue Plan funds, which is separate from ESSER money that CPS specifically received and spent.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2024/04/23/chicago-offers-grants-to-students-with-disabilities/ Chalkbeat Chicago

Chicago offering $500 grants to thousands of students with disabilities Students with disabilities may be eligible for a one-time, $500 cash grant from Chicago, meant to help families recover from the pandemic.

ACTION ALERT: Tell IL Attorney General Raoul to enforce IL’s student data privacy law to stop the test companies from selling IL students’ personal information. Email him using this form & then share with 5 friends! 👉 https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-ils-ag-no-more-college-board-data-sales

IL's new state High School test 😱: ACT, Inc purchased by private equity firm: "We should be worried about industries where there are a lot of government subsidies available, where consumers often are not well informed, and where there’s a lot of market power for firms"

Analysis: Private equity finds its next bet: college admissions | CNN Business College entrance exams, and the companies that run them, have had a volatile few years in the United States as universities around the country try to figure out what’s the best way to evaluate prospective student.

Test companies like the College Board and ACT, Inc. are illegally profiting from sales of students’ personal data. Learn about how these data sales were stopped in New York State and what we can do to push other states to end this practice too.

Join us for a Virtual Forum - Mon, May 6 2024, 8pm ET
Register online at: https://bit.ly/5_6_24_webinar

Please visit our event page for more info: https://www.ilfps.org/no_more_student_data_sales

Sponsored by Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, Illinois Families for Public Schools, and Class Size Matters

Update from late Thursday:

HB 4955, bill to limit state assessments, passed 81-22 👍
HB 303, bill to block more equitable budgeting in CPS, 92-8 👎

Thank you to everyone who reached out to their representative!

These bills will move on to the IL Senate…

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The deadline for passing bills out of the Illinois House and over to the Senate is TOMORROW, Friday, 4/19. Here are two bills that we've been following closely, and encourage you to call your state rep about today: https://bit.ly/ilgalookup

It’s a busy week in the House, so if your call goes to voicemail, leave a message with your name, say that you are a constituent and state your positions on these bills (HB 4955 - Support and sponsor; HB 303 - Oppose).

If you've already called on these, it's helpful to call again because they are out of committee and may move on to a full House vote this week.

SUPPORT - HB 4955. This bill would prevent future proposals to expand state tests beyond what the federal government already requires for grades K-6 and encourages the State Board of Ed to pursue any flexibility in federal assessment requirements.

We’d love to see it expanded to cover grades 7-12 as well, but this is a good start. Ask your state rep to sign on as a sponsor and vote YES: "Please protect elementary students in our public schools from overtesting by supporting HB 4955."

OPPOSE - HB 303 seeks to block the Board’s budgeting changes by ensuring that they can’t apply to any schools with selective admissions requirements if it would decrease their budgets—no matter what shifts there are in their student body or staff or elsewhere in the district.

Importantly, Chicago schools’ Opportunity Index scores don’t correlate all that closely with their admissions requirements. Some schools with test-in admissions have high needs: they likely will have more funding in the coming school year. Others with lower needs are likely facing some budget cuts.

But many of the schools that are low need 😊 low OI) are neighborhood schools or magnets which use a lottery for admissions. HB 303 wouldn’t stop budget cuts at these schools--and by protecting selective admissions schools from cuts, it means all other schools must shoulder them, if need be.

Another issue with HB 303: it’s not clear what schools it applies to.

Please call your state rep and ask them to oppose HB 303: "The General Assembly should be supporting a shift in Chicago to more equitable funding models, not opposing them. Please vote NO on HB 303."

Update - Thursday evening 4/18 - this passed resoundingly 92-8 on the House floor.

Vote is here:https://www.ilga.gov/.../10300HB0303_04182024_064000T.pdf

Notable comment from the end of the debate: Rep Andrade explained that he was voting yes because there has not been transparency on the school-level budget numbers.

This will now move to the Senate, where we expect it to have strong support. But it's still a terribly written bill which is intended to stop better policy from being implemented. 😕

****************************************************

Action Alert on HB 303, an anti-equity bill for Chicago Public Schools

HB 303 could get a vote in the House before the deadline for House bills to move to the Senate, which is tomorrow 4/19.

Please call your state representative today and ask them to oppose this bill and vote no if it comes to the floor: bit.ly/ilgalookup

(Fact sheet is in the comments!)

IL-FPS opposes this bill because its core intent is problematic: to prevent the Chicago Board of Education from moving to more equitable budgeting policies by protecting a small class of well-resourced schools.

It’s been amended to also extend the moratorium on school closures to all schools for another two years, but that won't fix what ails the rest of the bill.

HB 303 is incredibly badly written, and there doesn’t seem to be much discussion of that (e.g. the Sun-Times story about the bill today doesn’t cover this: https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2024/04/17/cps-chicago-public-schools-what-does-springfield-selective-enrollment-bill-mean).

Here's two major issues:

* The set of schools it applies to is NOT well-defined. We haven't exhaustively looked through every CPS school (https://www.cps.edu/schools/find-a-school/), but this phrase in the bill likely applies to NO schools: "any attendance center within the school district that has selective admission requirements that apply to the entire student body and that are approved by the board.” No schools have a selective attendance policy that applies to every student. Every selective enrollment high school has at least part of the student body admitted through a special education program. Others have career and technical ed programs that also take into account geographic boundaries (Hancock and Jones). Classical elementary schools have one criteria for K-4 and another for 5-8. Some selective elementary schools have preschool programs with entirely different admission requirements. Three of the Academic Centers for 7th-8th are located in what are mostly neighborhood-admissions high schools. These are all single attendance centers with one budget. HB 303 does not account for this at all. Maybe that's a good thing: ILGA can pass a law that simply won't apply to any CPS schools, but that's probably not what Rep Croke and the other co-sponsors think they are accomplishing with this!

* The budgets at the school level this year are heavily determined by a school's Opportunity Index score, a measure of how much need the school has mostly based on its student population but also some other factors. Schools with a low OI will likely be seeing cuts. That's what this bill is supposed to stop because there is an assumption that a school with a low OI is a selective admissions school. In fact, selective admissions requirements do not meaningfully correlate with OI. The language "disproportionate decrease in either the total amount or percentage of funds allocated...compared to other attendance centers of comparable size" is vague--what counts as a "disproportionate" decrease? Even if it were defined, it also prevents very needed changes in CPS budgeting. If some schools have a higher need population, more English-language learners, more special ed students, more low-income students, and more dollars are needed for those schools, then under the new CPS budgeting scheme and HB 303, if dollars are shifted to those schools, they can only come from other schools without selective admissions. There are a lot of neighborhood and magnet schools with low OIs! If this bill passes, because those schools don't have admissions requirements, they'll have to shoulder the brunt of any cuts.

Unfortunately, the district has chosen not to release school budgets or the OI scores. These hard numbers would let legislators look at what the impact of the policy changes are this year. We don't know why they are sitting on them, but we think it's a mistake to do so.

We did get a hold of the OI numbers for school year 2024 yesterday (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pj3jvzi3aZdO3C-MqHAWQAYD73Lc2fX3BzdVyOibJSA/edit?usp=sharing), which we assume the 24-25 budget will use.

As said above, there is not a simple correlation between admissions policy and OI. (See the tweet thread here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1780663620273127509.html)

Ironically, if you were an opportunity hoarding parent at a (relatively) well-resourced neighborhood school, then maybe you'd be pretty angry if your rep is supporting a bill that would likely hurt your kids' school for the benefit of a test-in school!

Do the parents in House District 12 with kids at Nettelhorst or Amundsen know what HB 303's chief sponsor Rep Croke wants for their schools? (And does Rep Croke herself know?)

In an ideal world, any school with a low OI could have hold-harmless budgets going forward, but in a world of looming deficits for the district and a shortfall of more than $1B in Evidencd Based Funding dollars for Chicago, that isn't realistic.

ILGA *should* be working on fully funding the EBF and preparing for thoughtful oversight of CPS and the Chicago Board going forward instead of this convoluted attempt to protect an arbitrary set of schools, mostly driven by their buyers' remorse on not passing a hybrid board earlier.

Please make sure your state rep hears from you today! bit.ly/ilgalookup

Questions? get in touch: [email protected]

‼️ ☎️ 📧 Tell your state rep to OPPOSE HB 303! A house vote before the end of the week is possible, so reach out TODAY, even if you’ve already contacted your rep. Find their contact info here: http://bit.ly/ilgalookup

HB 303, formerly HB 5766, a bill that would prevent Chicago Public Schools from transitioning to a more equitable budget system. Updated fact sheet to share with your rep: https://bit.ly/HB303info

HB 303 modifies the language of HB 5766 slightly, and another amendment to HB 303 has also been introduced. The latter would extend the existing moratorium on school actions in CPS through January 2027. Unfortunately, the changes from the original language DO NOT solve the core issues with this bill:

👉 It still does not provide clarity on which schools in CPS it applies to.

👉 The budget changes that the Chicago Board of Education is proposing for the coming school year depend on an Opportunity Index measure (introduced in 2021), which gauges the needs of the student population. Schools' OI ratings will not correlate in a straightforward way with their admissions type. HB 303 would make this shift to equity-based budgeting almost impossible by carving out a nearly arbitrary set of schools whose budgets could vary only minimally.

👉 Some budget fluctuations year-over-year have no connection to Board policy changes. Schools can have a big increase or drop in enrollment, but also may enroll many new ELLs, enroll SPED students who need more or less services than in prior years or have fewer low-income students in gentrifying neighborhoods. HB 303's simplistic language about disproportionate decreases does not account for this variation.

‼️ Urge your state rep to OPPOSE HB 303 and vote NO if it goes to a vote. The Chicago Board of Education should be supported in their policy and budgeting changes as they attempt to remedy decades of racial, economic and educational inequity by supporting all public schools across the city. The best way for the IL General Assembly to ensure all schools in CPS are adequately resourced is to fully fund the State's evidence-based funding formula.

🔔UPDATE & ACTIONS: HB 303 as amended passed out of committee this am 11-0. Floor vote before end of week is possible. Please ask your state rep to OPPOSE this bill that makes more equitable budgeting in CPS impossible for next three budget cycles. Updated fact sheet: https://t.co/JoRijIS1gN

Also call Chicago Board of Ed (773-553-1600) & CEO (773-553-1500) & ask them to publish school-level budgets. Transparency on 2024-2025 school year to compare with prior years would be helpful in arguing for improved budgeting.

Here's a set of slides with an overview of the principles guiding the '24-'25 budgets but would be useful to see what this looks like with detailed numbers:https://assets.nationbuilder.com/ilfps/pages/1403/attachments/original/1713279127/SY25_CPS_Budget_Overview.pdf

🎬 Action Alert: OPPOSE witness slips needed for CPS school action/budgeting bill

The House Executive Committee has two hearings scheduled TODAY and TOMORROW with HB 303 Amendment 1 on the agenda. This amendment's language is from previously introduced bill HB 5766, a problematic bill that would prevent Chicago Public Schools from shifting to a more equitable budget model. Please file slips to OPPOSE this bill this morning.

Here's the links to file witness slips:

OPPOSE HB 303 HFA 1 (Tue 4/16): https://my.ilga.gov/WitnessSlip/Create/142135?committeeHearingId=20940&LegislationId=142135&LegislationDocumentId=193780&HCommittees-page=1

OPPOSE HB 303 HFA 1 (Wed 4/17): https://my.ilga.gov/WitnessSlip/Create/142135?committeeHearingId=20915&LegislationId=142135&LegislationDocumentId=193780&HCommittees4%2F23%2F2024-page=1&committeeid=0&chamber=H&nodays=7&_=1713272398595

Detailed instructions to file a witness slip are here: https://www.ilfps.org/witnesssliphowto

Please check out our webpage for background on the issues with the original bill (HB 5766) and more information on the serious problems with the new bill—HB 303 Amendment 1: https://www.ilfps.org/action_alert_oppose_witness_slips_needed_hb303

If the IL General Assembly is concerned about new policies for facilities and budgeting, it should have held some subject matter hearings months ago, not rushed through poorly drafted legislation like this. Please file an OPPOSE witness slip for these hearings and also call your state rep and senator and ask them to oppose HB 303.

Action Alert: OPPOSE witness slips needed for CPS school action/budgeting bill Taking action for the public good