In 2024, the Illinois Education and Career Success Network continued to expand its reach and impact through thoughtful convenings, engagement with students, new supports, and funding opportunities for Leadership Communities. The Success Network also updated the data dashboard and explored policy and practice with the Policy Committee. Highlights include:
Hosted Over 300 Attendees at the Annual Conference
The Success Network hosted its annual conference in February 2024 with more than 300 attendees. The conference theme was Awareness to Action: Promoting Equity in Education and Careers. Dr. Kenyatta Lovett, principal at Education Strategy Group, gave the keynote address. He highlighted strategies for aligning local and state goals, shared best practices for advancing postsecondary attainment nationwide, and discussed how communities can use data to inform equitable strategy development.
The Success Network hosted webinars to supplement the conference, attracting over 300 attendees. Topics included “The A-I Ready Workforce,” “Supporting and Scaling Postsecondary Readiness Through Stakeholder Engagement,” “School and Nonprofit Collaboration to Provide Work-Based Learning Opportunities for High School Students,” and “Best Practices for Transfer Student Success.” (Recordings are available on the Success Network website.)
The Network also released its 10-Year Impact Report, which highlighted the students represented through Leadership Communities and their outcomes, as well as key enhancements, including the introduction of the Student Advisory Council and Policy Committee and how Leadership Communities are leading the way in implementing college and career readiness and success policies and practices.
Hosted Regional Meetings to Support Leadership Communities
To further support Leadership Communities, the Success Network hosted two in-person meetings. One was held in Peoria for communities in southern and central Illinois, and the second in the northwest suburbs for northern and western Illinois communities. During the meetings, communities reviewed disaggregated data from the Success Network Dashboard to identify which student demographics need targeted support and discussed how to support those students.
These meetings provided Leadership Communities with dedicated time to strategize on their local efforts and leverage the knowledge of peers from other communities. To allow attendees to participate fully, Network Organizers facilitated the discussions, took notes, and shared takeaways with communities. Attendees indicated via a survey that they found value in the gatherings, particularly connecting the data to their goals, identifying specific actions to take, and learning from the work in other regions.
Continued to Engage the Student Advisory Council
Network Organizers continued to grow and support the Success Network’s Student Advisory Council (SAC). In spring, 14 new members joined, replacing those who had graduated. In the 2023–24 school year, the SAC explored financial aid and tools to help plan for life after high school, such as the PaCE Student Checklist and the ISAC Student Portal. Students then shared information about the resources with their peers. The SAC also discussed the benefits and challenges of taking dual credit and CTE classes. To center students’ experiences, representatives from the SAC and the Illinois State Board of Education’s CTSO Board shared their analysis of barriers students face in taking dual credit and CTE courses at the annual conference in February. Students also recommended how to address those barriers, including increasing awareness about the classes and making them more accessible.
Provided Innovation Funding and Technical Assistance for Leadership Communities
Network Organizers continued to support communities in enhancing their work on college and career pathways. Specifically, communities continued implementing College and Career Pathway Endorsements by developing explicit college currency for endorsement earners through participation in an initiative led by EdSystems. The Leadership Community collaboratives funded in 2024–25 are Lake County (College of Lake County), NCI/Starved Rock Region (Illinois Central College), and Rockford (Rock Valley College). John A. Logan College, McHenry College, Prairie State College, and South Suburban College also joined the cohort. These colleges are working to finalize their currency options to build further benefits for students earning the endorsement.
Network Organizers were thrilled that for the Class of 2024 school districts in Leadership Communities continued to lead the way in offering endorsements, and are excited to bolster this work through the currency grants.
In partnership with the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association Education Foundation, EdSystems continued to support the Chicago, Northwest Suburbs, Peoria, Quad Cities, Rockford and Belvidere, and Sauk Valley Leadership Communities participation in the Scaling Transformative Advanced Manufacturing Pathways (STAMP) initiative. STAMP is strengthening manufacturing pathways that articulate to community college programs and employment opportunities, focusing on under-represented students with one or more barriers to education, training, and employment. A data brief from EdSystems describes the early results of this work.
EdSystems continued to support two Leadership Communities – Lake County and Southern Illinois Region – in the second cohort of districts implementing Accelerated Model Pathways for Information Technology (AMP-IT). AMP-IT supports school districts in accelerating and deepening aspects of their existing IT pathways by designing opportunities for high school students to earn more than 15 hours of early college credit that seamlessly stack into associate and bachelor’s degree programs. AMP-IT also offered districts the opportunity to participate in a teacher credentialing program to increase the number of teachers eligible to teach dual credit courses in IT. EdSystems continues to identify and elevate learnings since the initial case study to inform further scaling of CCPE.
Updated the Success Network Dashboard
This summer, the Success Network Dashboard expanded to include data views on 9th grade on track, students participating in early college coursework and CTE, high school graduation rates, postsecondary enrollment from high school, and community college remediation rates. Network Organizers socialized the updated dashboard with Leadership Communities through virtual meetings and made changes based on their feedback. The Network documented how to use the dashboard to make data-informed decisions and support students.
Explored Policy and Practice with the Policy Committee
The Success Network hosted quarterly meetings and a data deep dive with the Policy Committee to continue raising awareness of current policy issues, gather input for refinement, and identify new areas for exploration. Through a series of workgroup meetings, the group developed and released the second of two memos addressing transportation-related barriers to work-based learning for in-school youth. This memo focused on local and statewide solutions. It was shared with the Policy Committee, state agency partners, and the Career Pathways for Target Populations subcommittee of the Illinois Workforce Innovation Board as they began considering similar issues for out-of-school youth.
Began Planning the 2025 Annual Conference
On February 25, the Success Network will host an in-person conference at the I-Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign. The theme is Building the Future We Want – Increasing Equitable Postsecondary Attainment. Check out the agenda and register. Following the conference, the Success Network will host a series of supplemental virtual sessions to build on the conference’s theme while reaching a broader audience that can’t attend in person.
