Rep. Carol Ammons joins advocates discussing Illinois educator pipeline, ongoing issues

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — A new report released by the state's top education policy organization found Illinois has the most educators, administrators and support staff in over a decade. Yet, Illinois is still struggling to find paraprofessionals, special education teachers and bilingual educators in urban and rural areas.

Education leaders participating in a panel Thursday morning at City Club Chicago said they are glad state lawmakers have increased funding and incentives to recruit and improve the teacher pipeline. However, there is still a severe shortage of specialized educators in low-income communities, impacting Black and Latino students as well as kids with IEPs.

"Overall, only half of the districts had any teacher vacancies in the 2023 school year," said Ann Whalen, policy director for Advance Illinois. "The severity of the issue also varies by position. 5% of special education teaching positions and 3.9% of bilingual education positions went unfilled in the '23 school year compared to 2.6% of all teaching positions."

Advance Illinois found that the number of teaching candidates earning credentials in special education lags well behind the demand for classrooms. Special education teachers currently make up one third of the unfilled positions in Illinois schools.

"While we may only have at our alternative school a rolling enrollment of about 150 students, those are students from grades 5-12 who have significant stress and trauma in our community and are also coming into alternative settings who need additional supports," said 2023 Illinois Teacher of the Year Briana Morales. "So, it's very imperative that they have qualified teachers in front of them every day and someone, like a substitute, to stand in when their teacher may need a break or when there was a shortage."

Still, state leaders said a shortage of substitute teachers has also made it more difficult for schools to compensate for unfilled positions.

Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) said Illinois is at a critical juncture for education after several years of historic investments. Although, she stressed that the state needs to improve the evaluation process for new programs helping students and teachers.

"As a legislator, I don't want to invest funds where it ain't working," Ammons said. "I want to invest funds where there's new innovative suggestions and ideas to make this work. We can't have students at a high school level reading at 3rd and 4th grade level. We know where they're going if that's how they're reading."

The Illinois State Board of Education noted that teacher perception of effective leadership and collaboration dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic. A small set of schools have also struggled to attract and retain principals and other administrators. However, many more schools have reported high rates of principal turnover.

Advocates also believe Illinois should act quickly to extend pilot programs addressing diversity for teachers and principals before short-term federal funding runs out.

"It's just critical to put the money where you're going to see the biggest growth when it comes to student efficacy, and student knowledge, retention and achievement," explained ISBE Chief of Staff Dr. Kimako Patterson.

Ammons and advocates hope to introduce proposals during the 2024 session to continue improving the pipeline for high-quality diverse educators.