The General Assembly is back in Springfield this evening to start their last week of Spring Session. Scroll to the end for a complete to-do list of actions for reaching out to your legislators! But first, here are our updates on what’s needed and what’s still moving…

Progressive revenue sources needed more than ever

The details on the state budget, including K-12 education funding, remain to be worked out. Right now a predicted budget shortfall either requires cuts or more revenue.

School districts around the state are already facing budget deficits for a myriad of reasons, whether due to loss of federal funding or increased expenses. Although Chicago Public Schools’ proposed cuts have had a lot of coverage, the list is far longer—Mercer County, Rockford, Freeport, Evanston (high school and elementary district) Naperville, Indian Prairie, Springfield, Decatur , Wauconda.

Governor Pritzker dismissed the likelihood of the General Assembly passing progressive revenue options last week. But we agree with the legislators pushing for these options, the Affordability and Tax Justice Coalition: At a time of acute need, where families are losing access to food, healthcare and housing, it is unconscionable to choose cutting funds for our schools and communities in Illinois over asking the wealthy to pay what they owe.

Although the hopes for a ballot question on the millionaires tax died several weeks ago, several bills are still on the table in Springfield that would provide new revenue by taxing the rich, including corporations, to fund what Illinois needs in this moment, including:

Digital Advertising Tax – HB 4894/SB 3353 (N. Hernandez/Peters)
Billionaire Wealth Tax – HB 5215/SB 3376 (Mah/Villa)
Protecting Illinois's Budget from Trump Tax Giveaways – HB 5125/SB 3796 (LaPointe/Collins)
Ending Offshore Tax Havens – HB 5318/SB 3486 (West/Martwick)

You’ll find more details on each of these bills and a quick link to write to your rep and senator about all of them here.

Problematic biometric information in schools bill now in the House

Two weeks ago the Senate announced a package of bills to address emerging issues with artificial intelligence technology, including two education bills, SB 415 and SB 416, which have now passed the full Senate and moved on to the House.

We are in support of SB 416 as a very preliminary step to start to address the use of AI, especially generative AI based on very large statistical models, in schools. It is a small subset of what was in Sen. Martwick's comprehensive ed tech bill, SB 3735. Far more is needed, but, unless the GA takes SB 416 as a stopping point, not a starting point, it shouldn’t be harmful.

SB 415 is a bill to modify what is currently in the School Code regulating biometric information collection in schools. Even though it was amended since our previous action alert, it still does not strengthen what is in current law. Worse yet, it allows schools to grandfather any data collection they are currently doing with no set time limit. Existing contracts—as well as any contracts signed before Jan 1, 2027—will not be subject to the (admittedly quite weak) constraints in SB 415 until they are up for renewal or extension. If schools are using face recognition technology in security systems that indiscriminately scan students and visitors right now, this bill won’t stop that use for potentially many years. (You can read the testimony we submitted for a hearing on the most recent amendment of SB 415 here.)

New York State has now had a ban on face recognition technology in schools in place for more than five years. SB 415 doesn’t include clear language to make that happen for Illinois—language which was included in SB 3735 and an earlier bill of Sen. Villa’s, SB 1239.

Biometric information is the most sensitive personal data that children, young people and all humans have. As breach after breach of education data shows, it is clear that Illinois schools and contractors simply can’t protect even less sensitive data sufficiently. We need the strongest possible law for biometric information, which SB 415 simply is nowhere near.

Ask your state representative to oppose SB 415 until it is amended to be stronger. This is especially important if your rep is a member of the House AI working group (list here).

Senate Republicans call for federal vouchers; new bill in Congress to repeal the program

As we've mentioned before, there are two bills on the federal voucher program with Democratic sponsors in the Senate, a good one that would prohibit Illinois from participating in the program, and a bad one that would require Illinois to participate.

We do not expect a vote on either of these this week. But, the Republicans in the Illinois Senate had a press conference last week to call for passage of the pro-voucher bill, so we encourage you to keep this issue on your state senator’s radar and ask for them to sign on as a sponsor of SB 3966, the anti-voucher bill.

As discussed above, we need the wealthy to pay what they owe in Illinois so that our public schools can provide what our kids need to learn and grow. Instead, the federal voucher program is a Rube Goldberg-style tax write-off to let the wealthy divert their federal tax dollars to private schools in the form of vouchers. And those vouchers will then primarily pay for kids from affluent families who would attend private school whether or not they were getting public dollars to subsidize them.

That's just not right!

In addition to asking your IL senator to sponsor SB 3966, you can also ask your US Congressperson to sponsor a new bill to repeal the federal voucher scheme altogether, the Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act. This is a companion bill to the one introduced last month in the US Senate that Senators Durbin and Duckworth are cosponsors on. Here’s the link to write to your US Rep. Look up their phone number here to follow up with a call.

Action steps to start the week!

Here’s your "last week of session to-do" list, with all the steps highlighted above in one place! It is a busy time in Springfield, so, especially in the House, you may be leaving a message. Include your name, zip code and phone number in your voicemail. (Note: you may not need to list all all the progressive revenue bills if you reach a live human on the phone, and the shorthand "progressive revenue options" will suffice!")

Want to do more to help spread the word on taxing the rich to pay for what our communities and schools need? Join Citizen Action’s virtual phonebank tomorrow at 1pm to get more Illinoisans calling their legislators to demand progressive revenue not cuts to our communities.

Get your ticket to our birthday party to support our work!

Illinois Families for Public Schools is marking our 10th birthday with a party on Thursday June 25th at 6:30pm, Movement on Montrose!

Join us for an "old-school" celebration of our 10 years in the fight for public schools and a fundraiser to keep us moving into our next decade. Host committee is still in formation; you can buy your ticket or join the host committee here!

Although we are mostly volunteer-powered, we can’t take on all we do with just volunteer power: there is too much research, writing, outreach, organizing, and lobbying needed in this moment to do it without some paid hours. So, get your ticket, and we’ll see you at the party!

Thanks for your continuing advocacy at this busy time of year. Questions? Get in touch: [email protected]

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