New & Noteworthy

The State We’re In 2025: A Report on Public Education in Illinois, continues Foundation Grantee Advance Illinois’ tradition of taking a holistic approach to exploring Illinois’ education performance and progress across the full birth-to-postsecondary continuum. The report tracks the state’s key investments in education through funding, and metrics like staffing, and student performance over the past fifteen years to surface changes and trends. These findings underscore that while the state has established a strong foundation for learning and success, it must act boldly and with urgency to ensure all students thrive with equitable support. 

Daniel Rios was at lunch at John Hancock College Prep when he got a message from his mother that haunted him the rest of the day. She was anxious after hearing that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were near their neighborhood. Rios, a first-generation American, said he felt helpless. His mind wandered from his schoolwork, dreading the next message would bring terrible news. “All day, I’ve been thinking about what she said, and all I can say is, ‘Be careful,’” Rios said. “It made me shut down, in a sense, and constantly look over and make sure I don’t get any kind of notification from my phone saying, ‘Oh, they’ve gotten me.’”

New Mexico’s governor is promising universal free child care to families of all income levels. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced her plans this week, saying she wants to leverage a financial windfall from oil and gas production to help more parents by removing the state’s income eligibility limit starting Nov. 1. Rules for the program are being hashed out and lawmakers still have to approve funding, but New Mexico already is several steps ahead of other states when it comes to subsidizing child care.

Head Start preschool programs will continue to welcome all immigrant children regardless of legal status, federal judges ruled in two separate lawsuits this week, blocking efforts by the Trump administration to restrict enrollment.

What happens when long-established nonprofits lose access to the federal funding that has been a mainstay for decades? That’s the new reality for countless organizations, including Jumpstart for Young Children — which is regrouping in ways that hold broad lessons for its peers.

As Illinois works to build a more streamlined and equitable early childhood education system, federal funding, especially for Head Start, remains a vital cornerstone. Recently,  the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and the W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation, hosted Making Invisible Funding Visible: The Role of Federal Funding in Illinois' Early Childhood System

Proficiency rates in all subjects declined at Chicago Public Schools following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a new review found English language arts proficiency rates at the elementary level have bounced back and surpassed pre-pandemic levels — increasing by 11 percentage points between 2022 and 2024.

On September 12, 2024, over 200 attendees convened at the UIC Forum for “Equity-Centered Leaders, the Next 20 Years,” a celebration of the UIC College of Education’s EdD in Urban Education Leadership. The evening was a manifestation of the shared vision of program faculty from 20 years ago and a celebration of the program’s accomplishments, impact, and influence since that time. This video chronicles some of the highlights from the event.

When Maximus Simmons cast his ballot in November, he could only fill it out for one election — his Oakland school board representative — because he was among the first 16- and 17-year-olds allowed to vote in Oakland and Berkeley. The East Bay cities allowed teens to vote in school board elections for the first time last year, following years of youth advocacy.