In May 2018, a bill was introduced in the IL Senate that would have had the IL State Board of Education administer a survey of all high school juniors in conjunction with the administration of the state test and share the survey data with all public institutions of higher education in Illinois. After opposition from RYH Action, the bill was amended instead to set up a taskforce to study this type of data sharing (PA 100-1007).

People who believe in public education as a public good must remain ever ready, present, and active to defend and promote policies that protect classrooms across our city and state. Thank you for being part of building power around a variety of public education issues in 2018.

"Every person and organization involved in public education in Illinois benefits from RYH, from its unswerving dedication to its mission, from its sophisticated and effective efforts at the state Capitol in Springfield, from the continuous information flow in support of public schools. It's not an old group, but it is an influential one." --Jim Broadway

You all helped make a valiant attempt to move the charter commission bill for a veto override, but unfortunately the fix seemed to be in to keep it from getting through.

Dispatch from Springfield or Why A Grassroots Public Ed Advocacy Group Needs to Be in Springfield on the Regular:

First, thank you to everyone who shared our posts today, who signed up to be a recurring donor (woot!), and who on top of that made phone calls to Speaker Madigan and your own state rep about the bill to weaken the state charter commission, HB5175.

ISBE is currently proposing changing rules and setting requirements that go beyond what federal law says Illinois must do with respect to testing and opt out. These changes further entrench the overuse of standardized testing in Illinois.

Please raise your voice and submit a public comment about these changes.  Email your comment to [email protected] by Sunday, December 2nd.

#GivingTuesday is a week from today, and Raise Your Hand Action hopes you will support our work to bring a grassroots pro-public education voice to Springfield!

There was an override of the Governor’s veto on HB5175, the charter commission bill, yesterday in the House, and now it’s time to get it through in the Senate!

Our co-directors, Cassie and Wendy, are in Springfield this week to work on a number of issues! They will be meeting with Representatives Andrade, Martwick, and Williams to work on a data privacy bill. They will also be meeting with legislators to discuss the possibility of an override vote on the class-size goals bill Governor Rauner vetoed.

Who are we? What do we do? What do we believe? What can you do to support us?

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