SPRINGFIELD (WGEM) – Education in Illinois could soon change. Leaders from educational organizations across the state are coming together to create a new plan for schools in the state, Vision 2030.

The plan is a blueprint for where K-12 education in Illinois should be at the end of the decade. It also outlines potential legislation and policy changes to make it happen.

Organizations teaming up include the Illinois Association of School Administrators (IASA), the Illinois Association of School Boards, the Illinois Principals Association, the Illinois Association of School Business Officials and the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents.

The plan will be a basis for the groups’ advocacy and potential policy changes. It has four main tenets.

“We want to keep students safe, we want to have high-quality professionals in front of them as teachers, we want to enhance their post-secondary opportunities and the success they can have from those opportunities and, finally, the fourth thing is we want to effectively measure what’s working in schools in a timely manner so that we can make adjustments and make it better,” said IASA Executive Director Brent Clark.

Vision 2030 includes future-focused learning, which means reshaping schools and classrooms and redefining student success to prepare them for a changing world.

It also means shared accountability, which includes reforming the Illinois assessment system and giving the accountability system more local flexibility.

It also prioritizes providing predictable funding, which means protecting the current evidence-based funding formula, giving districts more financial flexibility and creating statewide funding sources for capital and safety needs.

“This is a continuous work,” Clark said. “It will not be all done in one legislative session. We’ve laid it out to occur in about six legislative sessions.”

Vision 2030 isn’t the first time these groups have worked together. They created Vision 2020 during the previous decade. It worked on a number of items including helping pass legislation in 2017 creating the current evidence-based funding formula.

Copyright 2024 WGEM. All rights reserved.