The Illinois Showcase brought together Policy Fellows, Early Childhood Policy Fellows, Change Agent Teacher Leaders, and Berkeley School District Teacher Leaders to present their year-long projects and share their stories. 

Dear Teacher,

If you are a National Board Certified Teacher (or working to be one) in southern IL, please check out this new opportunity to join the Rural Teacher Leader Collaborative! If not, check out these recommendations for some good, “almost beach” books.  

I’ve got nothing against a real beach read – my favorite is anything from the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which are set in Botswana and remind me of my time teaching next door in Namibia. However, these recommendations are for page-turning books about education that might compete with your beach reads!

The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession, by Dana Goldstein, is a compulsively readable story of what it has meant to be a teacher in America. Goldstein covers the birth of teachers unions, explains how Teach for America has actually occurred two other times in American history, and shows how the fights of the last few years around teacher evaluations have happened before – in the 1910s! If you ever wonder why it feels like being a teacher is just so hard, this is a great read.

Blind Spot: The Hidden Biases of Good People, by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald, explains the science and implications of implicit bias in an engaging, easy-to-digest format. Both of the authors are professors, but more importantly, they are teachers. Each time I began to doubt one of their assertions, they provided an explanation or example that helped address my concern. And they include several implicit bias tests you can take yourself while you read!  

Educated, by Tara Westover. This memoir is the story of a woman who didn’t see the inside of a classroom until she was 17, and went on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University. But the title refers not just to her formal education, but her own journey. Raised in a family dominated by a paranoid, isolationist, religiously fanatic father, she has to fight to shed her own upbringing in order to become educated. It’s one of the best books I’ve read all year, by an author whose writing is so compelling that we can envision every challenging and ultimately liberating step of her journey.  

Happy reading – and best wishes for a relaxing July!

Josh Kaufmann
Executive Director, Teach Plus Illinois

Practice Update- Kristen Ciciora, Chicago Teacher Engagement Manager

The practice section will be on hiatius while Kristen is out on maternity leave. In the meantime, if you have any topics you'd like discussed here (or would like to write your own!), please email Sarah Campbell at scampbell@teachplus.org

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Upcoming Opportunities

Big Ideas in Early Learning

Take part in intensive exploration that draws various disciplines in the field of early childhood education with Erikson experts. ​Participants will share their discoveries in interdisciplinary groups and connect on ways to make classrooms more meaningful for young children and teachers.​ Ideal for: Preschool through 3rd grade teachers. July 16-19, 2019​.

Agents of Change Fellowship

 As a fellow, you will go through an action-oriented process with a dynamic group of fellow educators to discuss the most pressing issues facing our students and the education profession. You will research policy recommendations, design solutions to real problems, conduct political landscape analyses, and learn how to strategically plan and implement an advocacy campaign. All applications are due by July 19th, 2019. 

Kankakee High School is hiring 3 high-quality Special Education teachers

KSD 111's collective bargaining agreement allows the honoring of up to 12 years' experience and offers 2 generous PPO health plans as well as dental, eye, and life insurance options. Anyone interested can email Jennifer Hartmann at jennifer-hartmann@ksd111.org to let her know they've applied. Apply here.

Teach Plus Illinois News

Good Reads

Teaching While White- A Letter to White Teachers of My Black Children

I am a Black mom.I know it’s sometimes hard to decide whether to say Black or African-American. I used to identify as African-American because I loved hearing the reference to my ancestral homeland in my description of myself. But then to say African-American reduces the majestic continent of Africa down to the status of a country. Read more...

New York Times- What Will Teacher Raises Buy Students?

Democratic presidential candidates have generated headlines with multibillion-dollar plans to raise teacher salaries. Kamala Harris set the bar by proposing to give public school teachers an average raise of $13,500.  Read more...

Chalkbeat- New research shows how teachers are key to boosting student attendance

Some districts have tried text messages to parents. Detroit has ramped up home visits. Newark has hired back a small army of dedicated staff. Many schools offer certificates of recognition. Read more...

The Atlantic- Better Schools Won’t Fix America

Long ago, i was captivated by a seductively intuitive idea, one many of my wealthy friends still subscribe to: that both poverty and rising inequality are largely consequences of America’s failing education system. Fix that, I believed, and we could cure much of what ails America. Read more...

Chalkbeat- In the second year of statewide assessment, three out of four Illinois children still aren’t kindergarten ready

More than three-quarters of Illinois children are still falling short on kindergarten readiness, according to data released Tuesday and collected statewide last fall. This is the second year Illinois has implemented the Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS) — an observational assessment by teachers who log developmental behaviors to gauge kindergarten readiness. Read more...