RYHA has been busy this fall hosting Mayoral candidate meet and greets with We Will, registering people to vote, and connecting parents by legislative district so they can advocate together.  

Thanks to all of you who came out to the student-data privacy hearing on Tuesday, August 7, in the IL House Cybersecurity Committee! There were quite a few parents in attendance and several who testified. Raise Your Hand Action pushed for this hearing because we have been trying to get a simple data privacy bill passed and have come up against serious opposition from the ed tech lobby and school management groups. 

Can't make it to our lobby day in Springfield on May 9? Here are three quick actions you can take from anywhere to support better public ed policy in Illinois! 

In January, RYH Action wrote a student data transparency bill with guidance from Rachael Stickland of the national group Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. As computer usage and data collection increases in public ed, parents have the right to know who is collecting, storing and sharing what data on their children, and this bill would do just that.

Big week in Springfield coming up: Friday is the deadline for bills to get out of committee in the House and Senate. On Tuesday the 10th there are two education committee hearings in the House and one in the Senate. There’s a lot of education legislation on the docket, and this is a crucial time to register your opposition and support by filing witness slips.

ACTION ALERT: 2 Witness Slips Needed!

April 3, 2018

Chicago Classical Academy Charter was rejected by CPS in December but is appealing to the unelected IL state charter commission for approval. The "targeted communities" for Chicago Classical are Bridgeport, Bronzeville, Chinatown, McKinley Park, Pilsen, and South Loop.

There was a hearing conducted by the commission on this appeal Tuesday night in Chinatown. We were live tweeting. The thread of tweets starts here.

The IL General Assembly is back in session this week, and there's an important bill on the agenda in the Senate Education Committee this Tuesday, Jan. 30th for supporters of public schools and the common good.