SJ0019 104TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SJ0019 LRB104 03459 MST 13482 r

SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Policymakers have strongly advocated for efforts to elevate the importance of retaining diverse and inclusive educators in Illinois; and

WHEREAS, The Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA), Public Act 96-0861, was signed into law by the governor in January 2010 and required school districts and other covered entities to include student growth as a "significant factor" in evaluating principals, assistant principals, and teachers by certain implementation dates; the law also required that evaluations include a four category rating system and regulated training programs for anyone undertaking such evaluations; PA 97-8, an offshoot of PERA, introduced the use of educators' evaluation rating outcomes into employment decisions in a number of ways, including the standards for certificate/license actions against an educator for incompetency, acquisition of tenure, reductions in force/layoffs, and recall rights; and

WHEREAS, PERA also created the Illinois Performance Evaluation Advisory Council, which recommended the Danielson Framework for Teaching to all districts for use in evaluating educators' professional practice in 2011; later, the State's evaluator training materials incorporated the Danielson Framework for Teaching for use as a training tool for all teacher evaluators; and

WHEREAS, Teacher diversity has been linked to improved student outcomes, including increased academic achievement, higher rates of gifted assignment, and lower rates of exclusionary discipline; to recognize these benefits, there has been a growing research and policy focus on recruiting and hiring teachers of color; however, studies have shown that teachers of color have high turnover rates, so retention of teachers of color has also become an important part of the conversation; and

WHEREAS, Research from Blazar (2024) finds that Black teachers:

(1) Have statistically significant positive impacts on Black students' self-efficacy;

(2) Enhance students', particularly Black students', engagement in classes;

(3) Improve student attendance, reducing absences by 47% for Black students and 22% for non-Black students;

(4) Improve math test scores of both Black and non-Black students; and

(5) Produce long-term benefits in English language arts test scores, particularly for Black students; and

WHEREAS, The Illinois State Board of Education began reporting the three-year teacher retention rate disaggregated by race/ethnicity for the first time in 2021; the data showed that Illinois schools retain Black teachers at the lowest rate of all teacher groups, 80.6 percent, compared to an 87.6 percent rate for White teachers; and

WHEREAS, After a year-long study, the Illinois State Board of Education released the Teacher Evaluation Research Project (2024), a research report that found the State's current evaluation requirements result in the following:

(1) A heavy workload, and at times, a burden on both teachers and evaluators, which minimizes opportunities to prioritize actionable feedback and professional growth for all educators;

(2) Concerns about the presence of bias in evaluations, particularly regarding student growth measures; and

(3) Disparities in rating distributions by educators' race and school district characteristics, with serious and significant negative impacts on Black and Latinx educators; and

WHEREAS, Since 2011, when Illinois recommended the Danielson Framework for Teaching as an evaluation tool, there have been lingering questions about potential biases built into Danielson Framework for Teaching itself, which could be contributing to the disparities in rating outcomes that we are seeing in Illinois and go beyond potential individual evaluator bias, and whether or not the tool is fair to Black and Brown educators in their work with all types of students, including students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and early learners; further, there has yet to be a clear body of evidence to demonstrate that the Danielson Framework for Teaching is a robust instrument, which would foster the equity-based teaching practices and reflective conversations that are envisioned in the Illinois Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONCURRING HEREIN, that we urge the Illinois State Board of Education to initiate and complete a research study to examine the application and use of the Danielson Framework for Teaching, including ways to confront ideological barriers to socially just teacher performance evaluation; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Illinois State Board of Education is urged to deliver this report to the legislature by June 30, 2026; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be delivered to the Illinois State Board of Education.