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EDUCATION REFORM

School children across Illinois are living with bigger class sizes, old textbooks, crumbling buildings and cuts in core classes and extracurricular activities. That's because Illinois' method of funding education creates some of the worst inequities in the nation.

What Voices for Illinois Children is Doing

Our advocacy on education policy centers around statewide collaborative efforts to reform school funding and improve educational quality, goals which are more important than ever considering Illinois’ ongoing fiscal crisis. 

Voices supports a policy agenda that would improve the learning of all students by ensuring every school, regardless of location, has the resources necessary to help kids succeed. Our policy recommendations include:

  • Raising the State Board of Education’s share of state and local sources
  • Increasing state support for school districts with high concentrations of low-income students
  • Targeting resources more effectively to improve student learning

All students, given highest-quality teachers and attention to out-of-classroom physical and social-emotional issues, can compete and succeed in a global economy. Illinois’ future depends on meeting that challenge.

What You Can Do

Contact your legislators and tell them it's time for a long-term, comprehensive solution that improves education quality and funding.

You can also make a donation to Voices for Illinois Children, sign up for news updates or join a Voices Leadership Committee.

Learn More

  • The updated Illinois State Report Card, developed by the P-20 Council, will better equip parents to make informed choices to support their child’s education. This fact sheet explains how.
  • Resources for bilingual students’ education would be distributed more fairly statewide, under legislation that’s advancing in Springfield, as this fact sheet details.
  • Understand why we must preserve Teen Reach after-school programs.  Read more.
  • Review the fact sheet on legislation which bolsters after-school programs by mapping a course for improved access, quality and coordination.  The legislation, championed by the ACT Now Coalition, establishes a Youth Development Council to guide this work.
  • Read the 2011 Illinois Kids Count data book, "Great at Eight: Investing in the Whole Child from Birth to Eight."
  • Read our report on school funding reform.

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