IFT President Ed Geppert Jr. testified before the Illinois House Elementary and Secondary Education committee at the state capitol on Wednesday, October 28. (See video exerpt from his testimony below.)

Geppert spoke about Illinois' application for federal "Race to the Top" funds and the IFT's position on education reforms. Geppert said the IFT supports Illinois’ application for these funds, but he cautioned that the state should carefully examine the potential impact on every school in the state from a financial and educational standpoint. He spoke about the importance of funding programs that are already included in Illinois law. He mentioned the IFT’s willingness to work on innovative educational reforms, including changes to teacher evaluation, like the ones recently approved by AFT members in New Haven, Connecticut.

President Geppert’s written testimony presented to the committee:

Testimony of IFT President Ed Geppert, Jr.
Illinois House Education Committee
Subject Matter Hearing on Race to the Top
October 28, 2009

Good afternoon.  My name is Ed Geppert, Jr., president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. The IFT, on behalf of our 103,000 members, is committed to working collaboratively with the State Board of Education and other stakeholder groups to do what it takes to improve education for all students.  The IFT congratulates the State Board on expanding the stakeholder group to create a larger forum that can effectively address the critical issues of education reform. It is essential that we all work together to find consensus on the right direction before legislation comes to the General Assembly. 

The IFT has always been willing to come to the table to work on the challenging issues that arise when addressing education reform.  We have been a strong voice and have consistently advocated for research-based, effective reforms regarding such issues as longitudinal data systems, charter schools and the need for equitable, sustainable state funding.

The IFT believes that Illinois should apply for Phase I Race to the Top funds. The State Board and Illinois’ 870-plus school districts are in dire need of funding to support the state’s many current, strong education reform initiatives, and there is a need for federal funds to fill the gaps until an equitable, sustainable source of state funding is available. We must also recognize that the US Department of Education has not issued final Race to the Top guidelines, so no one knows specifically what is required of Illinois’ application to receive a potential $300 million dollars over a multi-year period. 

Based on the facts we have, the IFT believes that Illinois has created a strong foundation for a Race to the Top application, and we know that ongoing discussions will be necessary as we receive clearer direction from the federal government.

Thanks to the work of the State Board of Education and the General Assembly, the state already has in place many innovative projects to satisfy the assurance areas of the Race to the Top grant.

All of these initiatives take both enough time to implement and sufficient resources to sustain them.  Federal Race to the Top dollars would only provide a stop-gap source to help these initiatives grow and produce results.  Unfortunately, Race to the Top dollars are not enough.  Currently many of these initiatives are either unfunded or not fully funded. 

A few examples include the need to fully fund:
        • a fully-functioning longitudinal data system that every classroom teacher is able to access throughout the day; 
        • induction-mentoring programs for all new teachers;  
        • an effective, research-based Response to Intervention process implemented in every school; and
        • continued work to revise the Illinois Learning Standards beyond high school English, math and science, as well as the need to implement revised 
            Learning Standards in every classroom and to develop new state and local assessments.

Initiatives like these put Illinois ahead of other states.  But we will only see positive results if initiatives are supported financially across the state and are given adequate implementation time and support as well as the technical assistance and professional development necessary to produce systemic change.  Take Response to Intervention, for example.  Such a process is a state-wide mandate, and yet today Illinois’ educators struggle to implement this process by Fall 2010 due to lack of state training and no state funding to districts.

Another, even more critical, example of an inadequately-funded mandate is the states’ longitudinal data system.  The IFT believes that the development and implementation of a fully-functioning longitudinal data system is the linch-pin that will lead to education reform, but only if the system can put data into the hands of classroom teachers as soon as possible. 

Senate Bill 1828, legislation to create a comprehensive longitudinal data system, passed the General Assembly and was recently signed by Governor Quinn. This new law puts Illinois in the forefront nationally and has allowed the State Board to secure much-needed federal grant money to develop a system that will create a state level data warehouse that is projected to be operational in 2013.  This data warehouse does not include the technology to put data into the hands of classroom teachers, and we must recognize that zero dollars have been allocated to develop this additional system to move these data down to the district, school and classroom level.

In districts where practitioners have real-time, easy access to their students’ information, we have seen improvements in instructional practices and curricular decisions, as well as improvements in school and teacher quality and student learning.  Prioritizing the development of such a system as part of the state’s Race to the Top application will fulfill the state goals outlined in Senate Bill 1828 - to get data into the hands of educators and to bring meaningful difference tonstruction in our schools.

We must also recognize that requiring teacher evaluation to be tied to student performance is meaningless and will not provide the academic outcomes we all want without an effective longitudinal data system that makes available to schools and teachers the necessary multiple data points that gobeyond statewide assessment data.  The research is clear: Statewide assessment scores can only be directly linked to 30 percent of the teaching force.  For teacher evaluation systems to include a student performance element, it is critical that districts be able to develop school and classroom level assessments.  If a district and its local collective bargaining representative agree to include multiple student performance data points into a local evaluation system, then districts will need time and additional resources to develop these classroom assessments and align them to the Illinois Learning Standards.  Even more importantly, districts and their local unions that choose to go this route will need technological support from the statewide longitudinal data system to manage these multiple data points in a meaningful way. 
 
Furthermore, we must acknowledge that a district will need to collect student performance data over several years before such an evaluation system can even begin to be seen as valid and reliable.  Given that the state’s data warehouse – but not the necessary technology to get data to the classroom level – is not projected to be in place until 2013, Illinois has a long way to go before we can be certain that districts even have the potential to make sound decisions about teacher evaluation based on a student performance component.  The IFT does not oppose school districts and their local unions agreeing to develop a fair and objective evaluation system with a valid student performance component – and current Illinois state law does not prohibit districts and local unions from doing so.  But we do oppose a statewide mandate to require the use of limited or unreliable student performance data in all district evaluation systems.  This approach would be harmful to teachers, principals and students.

Finally and most importantly, it must be recognized that at this time, the federal Race to the Top grant program is still a moving target.  The final grant application guidelines were originally scheduled to be available by early Fall with Phase I applications from states due by the end of December 2009.  The federal draft guidelines received a record number of comments, including strong dissent from many leading education researchers who point out the lack of a research on the efficacy of many proposed elements of Race to the Top.  The US Department of Education does not appear to be on track to meet the Phase I application deadline.  As a result, no one knows what will be required in the final Race to the Top application, or how the different criteria will be weighted, or even when the application is due. 

We all want a strong Race to the Top application to go forward that supports Illinois’ already-innovative programs and mandates that have been either unfunded or not fully funded.  We must also explore the addition of other promising concepts such as community schools and the creation of meaningful links for students between their K-12 education and postsecondary opportunities.  At the same time, Illinois must get its fiscal house in order as we address education reforms. Illinois has a strong foundation already in place for a competitive Race to the Top grant – and these components now require time, support and funding to develop and implement.

While federal funds can prop up Illinois’ efforts, federal money alone will not get the job done. Our focus now should be to work together for a responsible, sustainable state revenue source that provides necessary funding to the State Board and to local school districts once the Race to the Top money is gone.  We look forward to engaging in the ongoing discussions will be necessary to shape the final Race to the Top application once we receive grant requirements from the federal government.

The IFT pledges to be a dedicated partner working with our local union leaders and members; the State Board of Education and Superintendent Koch; and you, the members of the General Assembly, to help shape the reforms that can make a real difference in our schools.

 Thank you.