By Carmen Ensinger
All three school districts have approved a resolution in support of Vision 2030, so some are wondering just what Vision 2030 is.
According to the resolution itself, in a nutshell, it is aimed at being a statewide collaborative effort to promote education.
Public education plays a defining role in ensuring equal opportunity for children in Illinois and throughout the U.S. and it is the collective duty to ensure that every student, regardless of demographic or geographic identity, has equal access to a quality public education and that strides need to be proactively be made to face challenges and continually improve our the public education system.
There have been three areas of prioritization identified as integral in improving the public education system: future focused learning, shared accountability and predictable funding.
Future focused learning should address: promoting future driven skills that allow for more college and career exploration; enhancing student safety and well-being; attracting and retaining a high quality and diverse education pipelining; and promoting curriculum and instructional flexibility to meet the unique needs of local communities.
Shared accountability should address: reforming the Illinois assessment system to be a timely and useful measure of student proficiency and growth over time reforming the current accountability system to provide local flexibility for identifying indicators that create a more holistic view of student success; and reforming the mandate process to ensure implementation procedures that promote flexibility and local decision making.
Predictable funding should address: protecting the integrity and funding of the evidence-based funding formula; strengthening public education through pension reform and establishing equitable funding sources for capital and safety needs.
It is imperative that any education improvement proposal for comprehensive change must be developed and supported by not only the education community but in collaboration with families, communities, businesses and others whose priorities reflect the best interests of the students
The resolution is backed by the Illinois Association of School Administrators, Illinois Association of School Boards, Illinois Principals’ Association, Illinois Association of School Business Officials, Illinois Association of School Business Officials, Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, Superintendents Commission for the Study of Demographics and Diversity, Illinois Alliance of Special Education Administrators and the Association of Rural and Small Schools as well Carrollton, Greenfield and North Greene school districts.