JCAR to possibly take up new 'culturally responsive' teaching rules Wednesday

Rep. Brad Halbrook | Facebook

By Prairie State Wire reports

Feb 15, 2021

The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) could take up the new controversial teaching standards as early as Wednesday.

JCAR rescheduled its Tuesday meeting for Wednesday. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) wants the teaching standards, which they call “Culturally Responsive” teaching standards, to be passed, but there could be a move to block them.

State Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) isn’t on the committee, but he has heard many of his constituents say they are opposed to the proposed rules.

“With two-thirds of the kids in elementary that are not meeting grade standards for math and English, and this is what we desire to deal with, I think that is the wrong move,” Halbrook said.

Halbrook said the standards include certain speech that many teachers are opposed to.

Some have said the efforts could be used to block the free speech of teachers.

The proposed standards include having teachers assess their own biases, as well as their perceptions that impact their teaching practices. It also looks at tolls for mitigating teacher behavior toward homophobia, sexism, racism and privilege, among others.

The rules also include ways to address systems of oppression, including embracing and encouraging inclusive viewpoints and creating a risk-taking space that promotes advocacy and activism in students.

In December, JCAR was supposed to take up another issue involving teachers—that one gave preferential treatment to tenured teachers. That proposed change would allow for contractual continued service or tenured teachers to get the highest possible scores regardless of their performance, Praire State Wire previously reported.

“Any teacher in contractual continued service who received an 'Excellent' on his or her most recent evaluation, and whose performance evaluation is not conducted when the evaluation is supposed to be conducted, will not default to the rating of 'Proficient' and will instead default to a rating of ‘Excellent,’” the proposed text reads, the news media reported. “Any teacher not in contractual continued service will default to the rating of Proficient.’”

During the December meeting, the committee voted to extend the period of rulemaking for an additional 45 days.

The meeting will be at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at the Stratton Office Building in Room C-1.

The agenda is available online here.

JCAR is a bipartisan legislative oversight committee that oversees state agency administrative rules.

Committee members include: