Illinois, like many other states, faces a teacher shortage that is particularly acute in rural and urban classrooms. The state’s teaching ranks also lack needed diversity, as the teacher workforce is 85 percent white, even as mounting research shows students of color benefit from having teachers of color.
To help address these challenges, the Illinois P20 Council, The Joyce Foundation, and EdSystems partnered in May 2019 to launch Scaling Education Pathways in Illinois (SEPI). The initiative is funding communities to build streamlined teacher career pathways that begin in high school, extend into postsecondary, and allow students to get on a strong path to a teaching license. SEPI has a special focus on helping students from diverse backgrounds become educators.
Our Role
From 2019–2022, EdSystems supported 18 collaboratives. by providing access to best practices, convening communities of practice which include annual summits, and guiding participants through the College and Career Pathway Endorsement process. Additionally, we drove innovation in college and secondary district partnerships to expand early college and career development opportunities.
To support SEPI Cohort 3, EdSystems recruited two mentor collaboratives from Cohort 1: Making Opportunities Real for Everyone (MORE) in the Mississippi and Rock River Regions and the Southern Illinois Network for Future Teachers. The mentors deliver professional development and meet one-on-one with new SEPI collaboratives. During communities of practice, mentors present strategies for increasing access and success, building currency with postsecondary partners, and CCPE curricular and work-based learning implementation.
Program Analysis
In August 2021, EdSystems released an analysis of the initial implementation of SEPI with input from the first cohort of collaboratives. It was undertaken to understand how the components of the education pathway were being executed in practice and to collect promising practices and lessons learned. It includes four stand-alone sections: Implications and Takeaways, Key Findings, By the Numbers, and Promising Practices.
In October 2022, the NIU P-20 Research and Data Collaborative released the Student Voices Evaluation, which focuses on understanding the perspectives of high school students who were currently enrolled in education pathways as part of the SEPI.
