No matter their zip code, their religion, or their race, what most Illinois families want is a well-resourced public school right where they live and play, a school where every child is welcome and has the freedom to learn and grow. As an advocacy organization, we support bills that get us closer to that vision, and oppose bills that push that vision even further out of reach. 

Today a coalition of organizations delivered a letter to Governor Pritzker calling on him to act on his values and commit to opting Illinois out of a new federal school voucher program championed by the Trump administration. Full press release below.

It's a new year on the calendar, but the fights to defend and improve our public schools continue. Read on for the latest news on the looming threat of the new federal voucher program and a potentially positive development for state school funding in Illinois...and action steps to take on both these issues.

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.

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.

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.

The General Assembly’s Spring Session wrapped up last week in a flurry of votes on budget legislation. Here’s where some of the bills and issues on our legislative agenda ended up.

The General Assembly's Spring Session scheduled end date is May 24th. While that deadline may get extended as the budget gets hammered out, there are a lot of non-budget bills that are poised to keep moving in each chamber. Here are status updates on a few that we've been telling you about this session and actions for you to take.

The deadline for passing bills out of the Illinois House and over to the Senate is this Friday 4/19. Here are two bills that IL-FPS has been following closely, and we encourage you to call your state rep about both of them.