This week Feb 26-March 1st is being marked as Public Schools Week by pro-public ed organizations around the country, including Illinois Families for Public Schools. In celebration, the Willis Tower in downtown Chicago will be lit up Red for Public Ed on both Monday and Tuesday nights. Please help us spread the word on social media!

You may or may not have heard last week that a public good showdown took place at the Lincolnwood Public Library over the issue of book censorship. It turns out our former executive director and now board member, Wendy Katten, was at the heart of that story. It was reported on by the Chicago Tribune.

Downers Grove parents and students push back against extremist group trying to ban LGBTQ+ books

We shared with you last week that book banning attempts are on the rise nationally, and right here in Downers Grove a meeting was held Monday where a small group of parents supported by outside agitators showed up to try and have award-winning LGBTQ books banned from the school library. Luckily, the community came out in force to speak out against this attempt at this bigoted attempt at censorship. 

As we’ve shared, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has been talking about adding an additional state test for months, which would increase state testing to 3x a year and add an optional—but state-funded—component to test students in K-2 even though the feds don’t mandate state testing for students under 3rd grade. We’ve been part of a coalition working with teachers, assessment experts and other orgs to push back against this, as the type of interim test ISBE wants to use has been shown to have harmful effects on teaching and learning, and is not supposed to be used as high-stakes.