Community Networks

News

Illinois Math Badging Initiative: A Journey Toward Inclusive Education

What if there was a way to make math education more inclusive, engaging, and responsive to students’ needs? The Illinois Math Badging Initiative is about improving math outcomes while engaging and empowering students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of contexts. Check out our lessons learned in our first two years.

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News

New Success Network Policy Committee Memo Outlines Transportation-Related Barriers to Work-Based Learning Access

The Success Network Policy Committee convened a workgroup to explore work-based learning transportation challenges and is now publishing the first of two memos, which shed light on the significant transportation-related barriers students face in accessing work-based learning opportunities. This resource identifies and analyzes challenges impacting in-school youth at the school district, local, and system levels.

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News

Illinois Education and Career Success Network: 2023 In Review

In 2023, the Illinois Education and Career Success Network continued to expand its reach and impact through thoughtful convenings, growing the Network, engagement with students, new supports and funding opportunities for Leadership Communities, re-launching the data dashboard, and exploring policy and practice with the Policy Committee.

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Project

Extended Model Pathways in Chicago

In fall 2023, EdSystems began work with Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges of Chicago to develop five extended model pathways starting from early college through associate and bachelor degree completion for the following industry sectors: health sciences, information technology, advanced manufacturing, IT, and construction.

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News

Math Badging Receives Illinois Educators’ Seal of Approval

The Illinois Math Badging Initiative (IMBI) is piloting an alternative credentialing in math that allows for equitable student outcomes and certifies student learning through a variety of methods. Teach Plus Illinois assembled a group of math educators to understand how IMBI will alter the delivery of math and to provide suggestions to schools for supporting teachers.

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News

Unlocking Potential: Empowering Young Women in Manufacturing

Manufacturing has long been a male-dominated field, but the future of this industry depends on inclusivity and fresh perspectives. We gathered insights from manufacturing experts on supporting young women in manufacturing pathways. This collaborative effort has resulted in a resource that offers practical guidance for students at any stage of their career journey.

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Project

Elgin Community College Second Chance

EdSystems is applying its experience and knowledge of long-term system building efforts to support Elgin Community College as it seeks to better serve its students with experiences in the carceral justice system.

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News

Scaling Accelerated IT Pathways: Lessons Learned in Year One

To support the scaling of high-quality IT pathways in response to employer demand, collaborators in our Accelerated Model Pathways for Information Technology initiative designed a three-tier model giving students the potential to earn 30+ early college credits. Check out our blueprint, what we’ve learned, and how we are engaging student voices in the process.

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Events

Performance-Based Assessment Showcase

Teachers in the performance-based assessment pilot shared their projects and the process of creating them, highlighting how performance-based assessments can be used across disciplines and with students from a range of backgrounds with a variety of characteristics.

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Project

Community College Pathway Equity and Currency

To help encourage learners to complete the rigorous requirements and earn a College and Career Pathways Endorsement and matriculate into postsecondary, EdSystems is supporting the development of equity-centered strategies and incentives for students.

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Project

Lake County: Support for Career Pathways

In 2023, EdSystems began supporting Waukegan CUSD 60 and its regional partners with targeted support for alignment to the Illinois College and Career Pathway Endorsement and systems for career exploration.

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News

EdSystems Joins Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Accelerate ED, Launches Accelerated Model Pathways for Information Technology

EdSystems is proud to announce our participation in Accelerate ED: Seamless Pathways to Degrees and Careers, an initiative that seeks to blur the lines between high school and higher education and career learning experiences, allowing students to earn a career-aligned credential or degree by the end of one additional year after high school.

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Project

Chicago Early Childhood Integrated Data System

Launched in 2022, the Chicago Early Childhood Integrated Data System (CECIDS) is integrating data across systems and programs to enable creation of more timely and actionable data analyses and products that serve families, program administrators, funders, advocates and policymakers.

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News

An Initial Analysis of Scaling Education Pathways in Illinois

An analysis of the initial implementation of the Scaling Education Pathways in Illinois initiative, 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.

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Project

Chicago Equity-Centered Innovation Forum

The Chicago Equity-Centered Innovation Forum promotes models of personalized instruction, competency-based approaches, performance assessments, project-based learning, and other emerging innovations that provide promising education frameworks.

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News

Expanding the Law and Public Safety Pathway in Rockford

The support Rockford Public Schools receives from Education Systems Center at Northern Illinois University, thanks to the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois, is helping to drive aligned college and career pathways forward, including the Law and Public Safety pathway.

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News

Announcing the Chicago Equity-Centered Innovation Forum

In collaboration with leaders of Chicago Public Schools, school leaders of competency-based education (CBE) pilot schools, and other interested stakeholders, EdSystems will support the implementation of innovative instructional models as strategies for dismantling systemic inequities in traditional educational approaches.

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Project

Greater Peoria Essential Abilities and Knowledge (GPEAK)

To help stabilize and grow the local economy, community partners in Peoria are working with EdSystems to design and implement GPEAK, which translates the state’s ten competencies into a practical system to prepare individuals for meaningful and fulfilling careers.

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CTE students learning electrical wiring
News

Guidance and Resources for Providing High-Quality Work-Based Learning

Through collaboration with the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Education Systems Center has released a Career Development Experience Toolkit aligned to the frameworks established in the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness (PWR) Act and embedded within Illinois’ broader strategies around scaling high-quality career pathways and work-based learning.

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smiling college students
Project

College and Career Pathway Endorsements

Education Systems Center worked with public and private stakeholders to define key competencies for the College and Career Pathway Endorsements and is now working with community networks to support implementation of endorsement systems in line with the PWR Act.

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