Governor Rauner vetoed HB768, a bill to weaken the state charter commission, last week. HB768 would stop the IL State Charter Commission from overruling local board decisions on opening and closing charter schools, funded with local tax dollars. The IL House will vote on overriding this veto shortly.

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.

Be informed on critical education stances when you go to the polls on March 20th!  Read the responses we received to our questionnaire on public ed policy from candidates running in the primary for Governor of Illinois. 

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.

Our statement on the "compromise" school funding bill which contains vouchers.

August 29, 2017

Can you make a phone call before 11am TODAY, Monday, August 28?

Raise Your Hand Action is deeply disturbed to learn that school vouchers will likely be part of a bill that’s supposed to address decades old funding inequities in IL schools. We ask that legislators who actually value public education and believe in the separation of church and state vote against any compromise bill that includes school vouchers. School vouchers have no place in a bill that’s supposed to correct funding inequity, as they will further drain dollars from the public good to private interests.

This Wednesday was to be a big day in Springfield as the House was expected to vote to override Governor Rauner's veto of SB1. But now Wednesday's session has been cancelled because "progress" has been made in talks between the legislative leaders. A compromise bill could include establishment of a voucher program in Illinois. What can you do?

After Gov. Rauner's amendatory veto on Aug 1st, Raise Your Hand Action is in the governor's hometown of Winnetka canvassing to let people know that SB1 is not a CPS bailout.

Governor Rauner says that SB1, the new school funding formula bill, gives too much money to CPS because it would pay for part of CPS pensions.  But now CPS is the only district in the state which pays for its pensions itself. The state directly pays the employer pension cost for every other district in Illinois.