Congress passed a massive and harmful bill in early July that includes sweeping cuts to essential programs that millions of people rely on every day. From healthcare and food assistance to housing, and clean energy investments, the harm done by this law will be felt in communities across the country—including in our public schools. To help break it all down, Citizen Action Illinois is holding a virtual briefing this coming Monday, Aug 11th at 11am with leading experts from the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness, Illinois Environmental Council, the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, and Illinois Families for Public Schools.

Despite months of organizing and a concerted last-ditch effort by Democratic Senators to stop it, a federal voucher program ended up in the final version of the reconciliation bill that narrowly passed both chambers earlier this month.

Spring has now officially sprung, and the Illinois General Assembly is in full swing. We’ll have a full legislative update with more action alerts for you for the upcoming week. Some bills need additional committee votes to get to the floor, including HB 2696, the student data privacy bill we're supporting. Check our social media feeds for info in the meantime: Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram.

Looking beyond the state legislature, on the political front and soon-to-be on the economic front, things are rough, and will probably get rougher all around, including for our public schools. Below are some opportunities to stand up, get involved and create community.

On Tuesday, employees at the US Department of Education were told not to come into work the next day, and shortly thereafter layoffs that will bring the total employees to half of what there were in January were announced.

Chalkbeat - U.S. Department of Education to lay off one-third of staff

Although shutting down the Department altogether would require a vote from Congress, slashing the staff will achieve a similar result. Already last month, hundreds of millions in research grants funded by USED were cut and thousands of hearings on discrimination in the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) were cancelled as well.

The legality of all of these moves is under dispute, but the negative impact is not.

The attacks on public education—and public goods of all kinds—by the Presidential administration continue and continue to escalate. We’ll cover a few of these below, but also include ways you can pitch in to the fight.

It’s been a long first week of presidential executive orders targeting the public good and our neighbors, our families, ourselves. Monday’s late night illegal federal spending freeze​ was halted by a court challenge on Tuesday. For now the memo instigating that freeze has been rescinded​ (although not the orders it was meant to implement) due to widespread public outrage and pushback.

Last fall, pro-public school advocates successfully pushed the Illinois General Assembly to sunset the state’s school voucher program (aka “Invest in Kids”). A broad coalition of more than 60 local, state and national orgs made this victory possible. Rather than devoting tens of millions of dollars a year to private schools that discriminate, those dollars now go back to the state’s General Revenue Fund to support the public good—including funding our public schools.

In this issue:

1. The time is now for #PoliceFreeSchools
2. What will schools need to re-open in a pandemic?

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