IEA: Illinois Needs to Invest in Excellence

To: EDUCATION EDITORS

Contact: Denise Ward of the Illinois Education Association, +1- 217-544-0706, denise.ward@ieanea.org

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Feb. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Following is a statement by Ken Swanson, President of the Illinois Education Association:

To the editor:

When the spring 2007 session of the Illinois General Assembly concludes, voters will know whether state lawmakers have the political courage needed to fix our state’s broken and unfair school funding system.

Changing the way Illinois public schools are funded will require more revenue. The 128,000 members of the Illinois Education Association strongly believe our state needs to “Invest in Excellence.”

In exchange for this investment, the public has a right to expect an improvement in public school performance. We accept shared responsibility to be accountable along with administrators, school boards, our local communities and our state government for improving student learning so that Illinois has a world-class education system second to none.

To achieve excellence will require significant policy and program changes:

— Teachers need administration support and encouragement; high- quality

induction and mentoring programs for new teachers and principals are a

must.

— Data show smaller class sizes are conducive to better teaching and

learning conditions; we support a limit of 15 students per teacher in

kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.

— Frequent assessments of students can help teachers identify those who

need special attention; we support providing teachers with additional

training on the use of assessments.

— To ensure Illinois continues to retain and attract quality teachers,

the current reasonable pension benefits for teachers must be preserved.

— We favor expanding the number of public charter schools.

— Funding for Illinois colleges must be increased to allow higher

education to remain affordable and to ensure our institutions continue

to attract and retain high quality staff.

We also want to make clear where we stand on some controversial proposals that would impact teachers.

We are unalterably opposed to giving up due process rights, known as tenure; however, we support development of a system that works faster and more efficiently.

Standardized test results do not account for differences in children and their communities, so tying teacher pay to standardized test scores is unacceptable. However, this position does not preclude positive changes that can be bargained between employee organizations and district administrations.

We are unalterably opposed to “merit pay” schemes, but local teacher associations can, through the collective bargaining process, voluntarily explore alternative approaches to enhanced compensation, including ways to better connect pay with improved student learning.

A great public school is a basic right for every child. It is time to put aside narrow, parochial interests and do what is right for all of our students and for the future of Illinois.

Sincerely,

Ken Swanson, President

Illinois Education Association

SOURCE Illinois Education Association

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