Resource Archive

Illinois created a Teacher Leader Endorsement in 2012. This research shows that teachers who have the endorsement found their learning valuable, but that the endorsement did not open up opportunities for them to advance in their careers.

To support the development of high-quality Career Exploration and Career Development Experiences in middle and high schools across the state, EdSystems distilled the feedback received from pilot sites into best practices, lessons learned, and recommendations for policy and supports to help better inform the field.

In partnership with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and the Illinois State Board of Education, Education Systems Center at NIU created a Toolkit to provide guidance, tools, and frameworks to offer a Career Development Experience.

Explores resources developed through the Illinois State Board of Education's pilot program to develop Career Exploration and Career Development Experiences in middle and high schools.

The purpose of this extension is to explore Career Development Experiences and provide resources to address the needs of stakeholders outside of a traditional high school setting, including workforce development organizations, community-based organizations, and alternative high schools.

The Illinois Work-Based Learning Innovation Network (I-WIN) is designed to help employers, educators, and students leverage innovative models for scaling high-quality work-based learning opportunities in school districts and community colleges across the State.

This playbook was developed by the Clayton Christensen Institute to help K–12 and postsecondary leadership and nonprofits that work with those institutions implement and adapt strategies, tools, and metrics that build and strengthen their students’ networks in support of their well-being and with the aim of expanding their postsecondary and career options.

The Postsecondary Workforce Readiness Act establishes a voluntary system for school districts to award college and career pathways endorsements on high school diplomas. Download the endorsement framework.

Download a one-page brief from Education Systems Center at NIU on HB3296, new legislation which advances the work laid out in the PWR Act by centering on two of its core components: the Postsecondary and Career Expectations (PaCE) Framework and the College and Career Pathway Endorsements.

An article by LEAP Innovations CEO Phyllis Lockett describing the ways new learning technologies can broaden student pathways and skill-building.

This article in Forbes by LEAP CEO Phyllis Lockett underscores how today’s students will need human skills, hard skills, an ability to integrate them, and a capacity to keep learning more in order to thrive in the future of work. It features Lindblom Math and Science Academy and its “Colloquia” initiative.

LUDA has presented recommendations to the ISBE board regarding changes to the state assessment system.

In 2021, LUDA published a white paper detailing the experiences and lessons learned from seven CBE pilot districts in Illinois.

The Chicago Equity-Centered Innovation Forum (CEIF), launched in the spring of 2021, promotes models of personalized instruction, competency-based approaches, performance assessments, project-based learning, and other emerging innovations that provide promising education frameworks.

At the CEIF Resource Hub, you will find links to webinars and blogs, competency-based education resources, relevant publications and articles, and links to supports for innovative education models.

The LEAP Learning Framework is a research and evidence-based pedagogical framework for personalized learning. This guide includes research and example strategies for implementation that are focused on, led with, and demonstrated by the learner and are connected to career-relevant, real-world skills and opportunities.

Watch an “impact story” of how one Englewood, Chicago school’s transformation to personalized learning with LEAP Innovations positively affected the development and leadership of an eighth grader named Deon.

Watch the “impact story” of how Belmont-Cragin Elementary School, on Chicago’s West Side, successfully shifted its school-wide practice to personalized learning, in partnership with LEAP Innovations.

Watch the “impact story” of Steve McWade, a fifth grade teacher at Lovett Elementary School in Chicago. Throughout eighteen years of teaching, Steve has always seen trust and human connection as the foundation of powerful learning experiences. Working with LEAP, he developed structured ways for building relationships and honed tangible and rigorous tools and practices for helping each and every one of his students advance.

Education has changed very little over the past century. If Rip Van Winkle fell asleep in his math class in 1919 and woke up a hundred years later, he would immediately recognize the structures and routines of the school day. We must seize the disruption of the pandemic to build a new normal that is both more effective and more equitable.