We're still awaiting a House floor vote on SB 3986, the Senate version of Too Young To Test. So there's still time to call your state rep to ask them to sign on as a sponsor and vote YES!

Too Young to Test bill passes on the Senate floor! Now it's the House's turn!

Last week the full Senate voted on the Too Young to Test bill, and it passed with broad bipartisan support, 53-2, with only Senators Curran (R-Downers Grove) and Plummer (R-Vandalia) voting no. (Roll call here.)

But this bill is facing more opposition in the House from the IL State Board of Education because they are very eager to expand the state testing system into K-2.

Please take a minute today to call your state rep if you haven't called yet this week. Ask if you can count on them to vote YES on the floor on HB 5285 and ask them to sign on as a sponsor.

Too Young to Test bill through committee!

The Too Young to Test bill kept moving forward this past week. It passed in committee in the IL House on Wednesday evening, with the hard work of chief sponsor Rep Lindsey LaPointe and heartfelt speeches from Representatives Sue Scherer and Cyril Nichols about the damage high-stakes testing has done to children.

With the Senate version passing in committee the previous week, both bills could have a floor vote in their respective chamber any day once ILGA returns to Springfield on Tuesday.

Updates on standardized testing bills in hearing in the House this week, HB 5285 and HB 5149; expanding the Earned Income Credit and creating a Child Tax Credit to make IL's tax structure less regressive; what's happening with the mask mandate lawsuit and its impact on schools.

Last Tuesday the Senate version of the Too Young to Test bill, SB 3986, passed in the Senate Education Committee. There is also a companion bill in the House, HB 5285, filed by chief sponsor Rep Lindsey LaPointe with the same language as the Senate version that is now moving, and it has a House Education Committee hearing this Wednesday 2/16 at 2pm.

Please put in a witness slip as a PROPONENT before the hearing! Witness slip filing instructions here.

Champaign CUSD 4 is in contract negotiations with the Champaign Federation of Teachers, and the Board of Education wants to extend the day by 50 minutes starting in fall 2023. Justification for this change is the passage last summer of the Right to Play recess bill which requires 30 minutes of play for grades K-5 in public elementary schools every day. IL Families for Public Schools sent a letter about this to the CUSD 4 Board of Education. Letter here and text below.

Things are moving again in Springfield, and the Too Young to Test bill, SB 3986, we're working on has a Senate Education Committee hearing at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon!

Please put in a witness slip as a PROPONENT before the hearing! Witness slip filing instructions here.

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Last night the judge in the covid-mitigation measures in schools case issued two rulings. The first was on class certification, whether the lawsuits could become class action suits on behalf of not just the plaintiffs, but all members of the class (the class of parents of school students and the class of school employees). This wasn’t granted (at least for now). The judge acknowledged that there is not a uniform class that wants covid mitigation measures like masks in schools lifted. Last month our director Cassie Creswell submitted a declaration as part of the lawsuit in opposition to the class certification. You can read it here. 

The second ruling was not good news for public health and public schools, certainly in the short term and possibly longer. The judge granted a temporary injunction on the rules from the IL Department of Public Health and the IL State Board of Education requiring masks, quarantining for those exposed to covid, and vaccinations and testing for employees. You can read the ruling here. See p. 28 for the actual order. 

Despite the fact that the federal government does not require standardized math and reading tests for students in grades K-2, the IL State Board of Ed is considering a proposal that would expand the state testing system to include those grades. They will be voting soon on this proposal, which would also increase 3-8th grade state math and reading testing to three times a year instead of once, in addition to paying for districts to give these tests to our youngest learners—when there’s absolutely no federal requirement to do so!

Illinois Families for Public Schools and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy sent a letter to US Senator Dick Durbin on Thursday in response to recent reporting in the Big Tech watchdog publication The Markup about the implications for student data privacy of ed tech companies with products including Powerschool and Naviance that a private equity firm, Vista Equity, has recently been buying up: