Bill Text: IL HR0062 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly | Enrolled

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Bill Title: Urges the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to support the state goal of increasing the number and diversity of Illinois' educator workforce by collaborating with the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE), the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB), and the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) to develop and launch a state-wide teacher recruitment system internally, possibly with the support from an outside vendor, that will be available to the public by July 1, 2024 and will support interested candidates statewide to apply to, enroll in, and complete Illinois' Teacher Preparation Programs and succeed in their eventual job placement.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 10-0)

Status: (Passed) 2023-03-28 - Resolution Adopted [HR0062 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2023-HR0062-Enrolled.html

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HOUSE RESOLUTION 62
WHEREAS, Teachers are the single most important in-school
factor affecting student achievement, and having a diversity
of teachers significantly improves academic outcomes for both
students of color and white students; and
WHEREAS, Illinois has been grappling with a teacher
shortage for years with 2,139 vacant teaching positions in
Fall 2022, affecting an estimated 30,000 students; and
WHEREAS, Teacher vacancies are not experienced equally,
concentrating in classrooms that serve special education
students and bilingual students as well as in schools that
serve students who are Black, Latinx, from low-income
households, or from rural areas; and
WHEREAS, Illinois' teacher workforce does not represent
the racial diversity of its PK-12 student population; and
WHEREAS, The number and percentage of enrolled teaching
candidates have increased in the past few years, but the
number of enrollees in Illinois' teacher preparation programs
(TPPs) is still below historic levels; and
WHEREAS, For many candidates of color, the cost of higher

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education is a barrier towards completing teacher preparation
programs; and
WHEREAS, The State has an array of recruitment and
affordability initiatives that help address these challenges,
such as early pathway programs, Minority Teachers of Illinois
(MTI) scholarships, the Illinois Teacher Loan Repayment
Program, Special Education Teacher Tuition Waivers (SETTW),
the Monetary Award Program (MAP), and traditional and
alternative pathway programs, but too few high school and
college students or potential career changers know about the
benefits of teaching as a career and the availability of state
tuition support; and
WHEREAS, The increase in new licensure pathways that
enable candidates to become teachers has complicated an
already difficult to navigate teacher licensure system, making
it more important than ever to provide personalized, targeted
support for prospective teacher candidates; and
WHEREAS, The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has
recently developed and released the Illinois Educator
Preparation Profiles (IEPP) system that provides public
information on the performance of Illinois educator
preparation programs across the State; the IEPP could be
connected to a state-wide teacher recruitment system to

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increase candidates' access to this important information; and
WHEREAS, Research has shown that personalized, targeted
support for prospective teacher candidates supports their
efforts to navigate the maze of information, the financial aid
process, and the requirements, increasing the number and
diversity of candidates entering the profession; and
WHEREAS, The creation of a statewide teacher recruitment
system by ISBE, with the support of the Illinois Board of
Higher Education (IBHE), the Illinois Community College Board
(ICCB), and the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC),
would facilitate the process of attracting, cultivating, and
supporting prospective future teachers to pursue teaching by
making resources available through a website and an associated
social media outreach, providing prospective teachers with
such aids as personalized educator preparation program
application checklists, scholarship and financial aid
information, downloadable guides on candidate eligibility and
application advice, detailed profiles on each Illinois
educator preparation program, educator licensure pathway
information, opportunities for personal conversations with
state staff and Illinois teachers to answer application
process questions, profiles on Illinois' public school
districts, and real-time job postings from Pre-K-12 public
school districts across the State; therefore, be it

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RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
we urge the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to
support the state goal of increasing the number and diversity
of Illinois' educator workforce by collaborating with the
Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE), the Illinois
Community College Board (ICCB), and the Illinois Student
Assistance Commission (ISAC) to develop and launch a
state-wide teacher recruitment system internally, possibly
with the support from an outside vendor, that will be
available to the public by July 1, 2024 and will support
interested candidates statewide to apply to, enroll in, and
complete Illinois' Teacher Preparation Programs and succeed in
their eventual job placement.