“Equity” comes for teachers – academic growth no longer a mandatory factor in principal and teacher performance evaluations

Illinois K-12 school districts are no longer required to incorporate student academic growth as a significant factor in the performance evaluations of principals and teachers. Public Act 104-0020, also known as Senate Bill 28, was signed into Illinois law and became effective the next day, July 1, 2025. 

The Act causes changes to Articles 24 and 34 of the Illinois School Code as well as the Performance Evaluation Reform Act.  It provides public school districts with the discretion to opt-out of using academic results in principal and teacher performance evaluations. Whereas the previous School Code maintained accountability to school purpose with a mandatory minimum 30% weight put on student academic growth, the new School Code reads: “The evaluation may provide for the use of data and indicators on student growth as a factor in rating performance” (pg 34).  “May” is the operative word. If you thought the education of children was significant, Illinois lawmakers just showed you otherwise.

The new School Code no longer considers student growth a “significant factor” in public education. The Code could have preserved describing student growth as a significant factor in public education, and still given districts full discretion on weighting growth in performance evaluations. Instead, the word significant was struck throughout and its former meaning obfuscated.

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Prior to recent change, the Illinois Association of School Boards described the School Code’s requirement this way, “The evaluation plan must provide for the use of student growth as a significant factor in each teacher’s evaluation. “Significant factor” means that data and indicators on student growth must be at least 30% of the evaluation rating.”

The effectiveness of 30% weight is debatable; however, it was the mere existence of a mandatory minimum that helped public schools define and preserve their purpose.  However thin, this accountability gave taxpayers an expectation they would get at least some of what they were paying for.

While eliminating the requirement to use student growth in evaluations is likely to upset families, it’s important to consider how principals and teachers may respond. Imagine working for 2 years or 20 and being treated equal.  Imagine a system where it is not possible to excel professionally based on the expected outcome of your work.  The “evidence based” strategies prescribed to produce equal outcome among students have failed miserably, and there is no reason to think good teachers will want anything less than equal opportunity to excel.

Missing from the new code is where the weight formerly put on student growth will be re-allocated in performance evaluations. This is probably a good question for your school board if they opt-out of student growth.

According to the 2024 IL State Board of Education  97.2% of Illinois’ 66,326 teachers were already rated excellent or proficient, despite just 41% and 28% of Illinois students were rated proficient in English language arts and math, respectively.  This is Illinois, so this could just be the law catching up to the practice.

How much weight does your school district put on academics when evaluating principal and teacher performance? E3 wants to know.

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