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Dr. Brent Clark
There will be a shift in the political atmosphere in
Springfield this coming January with the inaugurations
of our state’s newly elected lawmakers and governor on
January 9 and January 14, respectively.
Both the House and Senate chambers of the 101st
Illinois General Assembly will also have Democratic
super-majorities. Forty-three new legislators, including
appointments, either recently have or will take office in
January. A lot of these freshmen legislators will be flexing
their muscles to bring campaign promises and hopeful
political change to Springfield. But, political reality says
they will have a tough time going up against the financial
nemesis, the 50 year pension repayment ramp, that
continues to plague Illinois. In my opinion, this is the single
largest issue facing our state and is going to have to be
dealt with sooner rather than later if the state is going
to move forward fiscally. However, I remain confident
compromises will be made and cooperation from all sides
will be present to address critical issues with this new
change in administration.
Governor-Elect Pritzker has announced his 35-person
Education for Success transition team comprised of
school superintendents and many other representatives
from the education community. This transition team will
tackle many important issues facing public education
that need to be addressed in order to ensure maximum
educational success for all students. These education
issues are multi-faceted and present unique challenges,
especially considering the overall strain on Illinois’ budget.
This education transition team will have an important role
in helping to vet and craft key education policies for the
Pritzker administration. The team is scheduled to meet
multiple times between now and inauguration day and
there is already some discussion of keeping the group
together through the end of the spring session.
CompromisePossible inNew
Political Environment
Message From the Executive Director
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Back in early August, we started the process of
refreshing the Vision 20/20 document to have it ready for
the next gubernatorial administration. We are putting the
final touches on this document and it will go to Pritzker’s
team soon. Next month in Leadership Matters, we plan to
detail the latest on Vision 20/20. Stay tuned.
One recent development with Vision 20/20 I can share
is HB 4284 becoming law after lawmakers convincingly
overrode the governor’s veto during veto session. The
initiative requires three active educators to serve on the
Illinois State Board of Education board. We have tried to
pass this bill for several years and are pleased because
it provides professional expertise that will help guide
the implementation of state initiatives and help ensure
that oversight and regulatory efforts positively impact
student learning.
Lastly, I know many of you have been busy this fall in
preparing your district Strategic Dashboard that helps tell
your school district’s success story as a supplement to
the Illinois School Report Card. This issue of Leadership
Matters promotes some of the dashboards that are
now complete and also is a quick reminder to turn
your Strategic Dashboards live and tag your posts with
#ILSchoolStories
. Here at
www.ILSchoolStories.comyou will see other live school district Strategic
Dashboards and it’s a central-hub for sharing
successes about Illinois public schools. We are
going to be capturing this online data and plan to
use it to share with legislators this Spring.