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What you do can change the world
Nelson Mandela’s quote is
one of the most powerful
descriptions of education I have
ever seen. I hope those words
help inspire you to stay focused
on the truly important issues
when you encounter turbulence
from Washington, Springfield,
the media, the public or even
your own school board.
Thanks in large part to the
professional way in which you
the superintendents handled the
state’s budget issue, Pre-K-12 has a budget – the
only part of the state budget to be approved for the
full year. The way you addressed the issue with your
communities and with the press -- professionally and
without hysteria -- generated lots of calls to
legislators and put an enormous amount of pressure
on them to pass a budget for schools.
Of course, issues still remain, the most important
one probably being the efforts to change the school
funding formula. The governor’s School Funding
Reform Commission has begun to meet and the early
word is that they are going to try and stay focused on
the formula itself and equity versus things like tax
hikes, a property tax freeze, a cost shift, pension
reform and collective bargaining issues. That narrow
focus may help the
commission avoid the
political potholes that
have wrecked past
attempts at school
funding reform,
though the task still
looks pretty daunting
without new
revenues.
IASA and other
stakeholders are
serving in an advisory capacity to the commission. As
you know, we support the Evidence-Based Model for
Student Success, which is one of the key elements
under the Equitable and Adequate Funding pillar in
the Vision 20/20 initiative. We have developed a “Y
Draw” video that gives a good 2 ½ -minute overview
of the evidence-based model. You can view that by
clicking on the icon above.
We have not yet released specific district-by-
district numbers for the evidence-based model
because we want to make sure all of the factors in
the formula are finalized, but we have done enough
permutations that we can say with 100 percent
confidence that there are no red numbers. Under this
plan, every district in the state at a minimum would
receive no less per student than they will receive this
school year under the FY17 budget.
Talking about the new school year, we have
compiled a list of the 58 new Illinois school
superintendents on pages 22-24. Please take a
moment to reach out to the new superintendents in
your region to welcome them, offer them support and
invite them to attend your region meetings and the
IASA Annual Conference.
Speaking of the IASA Annual Conference, we
have probably the most dynamic and diverse group
of keynote speakers ever, from a Paralympian to one
of the nation’s leading voices on transforming
education in an era of changing
demographics to an education
technology “rock star.” Each of them is
profiled on Pages 11-17 and I think you
will find their stories to be quite
intriguing.
The lineup of breakout sessions is
equally compelling. The dates of this
year’s conference are September 28-
30 and you can register by clicking
here .We also will be tweeting about
the conference using the hashtag
#IASA16
.
Best wishes for a successful school year. More
than 2.1 million children are counting on us to provide
them the best possible educational opportunities
regardless of their zip codes or whatever obstacles
are placed in our way. IASA stands ready to help with
mentoring, professional development, legal
assistance, legislative advocacy, crisis
communications assistance or in whatever we can.
As Nelson Mandela said so eloquently, what you
do day by day in your school
district can truly change the world.
Message from the
Executive Director
Dr. Brent Clark
Brent