Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative

@iwerc.bsky.social

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IWERC’s mission is to work with community partners across the state to research and co-construct solutions to the most pressing issues in the cradle-to-career, education-to-workforce ecosystem.

"There should be a trusted messenger who speaks the same language as the family." In our new study on multilingual learners in Illinois early childhood settings, stakeholders raised communication and relationship building with multilingual families as a key issue. Early childhood providers worked to make multilingual families feel seen by honoring and valuing their home language starting at recruitment. To learn more, read our new report: go.illinois.edu/ECE_ML
IWERC's director presents data on educational attainment in Illinois.
A picture of the panel at the EC-REACH conference.
Representative Lisa Hernandez introduces the event.
IWERC staff at the dual language listening tour in DeKalb.
A picture from the the City Colleges meeting on industry trends in tech.
IWERC staff receive an award for an exemplary paper at the RESPECT conference.
The IWERC team in Washington, IL.
IWERC's Meg Bates and Shereen Oca Beilstein at the Teacher Vacancy Summit.
IWERC presents at the Illinois Higher Education Futures Table meeting.
An expert panel discussed Black student success.
IWERC staff traveling to support the Illinois Comprehensive Numeracy Plan.
A panel discusses the role of creative workers and arts and culture in civic life and the economy
A panel of RPP leaders share information on research-practice partnerships in Illinois.
Did you know? 5% of principals overseeing a school with a kindergarten grade level held an ECE endorsement. 11% had experience teaching in kindergarten. 41% had experience teaching in a primary grade (K-3).
AEFP conference schedule
A photo of Lazaro Lopez standing with Ying Chen with District 214 logo background.
Teacher Vacancy Grant Year 2 Evaluation. A text box reads: Key Finding #3. Program-participating districts plan to prioritize effective recruitment and retention efforts upon completion of the grant. “There's no way that I will give up [the student teaching] program now that we've got it rolling. It's an important part of our strategy now on how we're going to get people to come to the community.” – Rockford SD 205. Visit https://go.illinois.edu/teachervacancypilot.
Teacher Vacancy Grant Year 2 Evaluation. A text box reads: Key Finding #2. Program-participating districts’ plans to reduce teaching vacancies varied based on staffing needs and local contexts. Three spending groups emerged in how interviewed districts allocated grant funding. Districts directed their strategic focus to one the following: Mainly recruitment, mainly retention, or both recruitment and retention. An image of an empty classroom serves as the background. Visit https://go.illinois.edu/teachervacancypilot.
Teacher Vacancy Grant Year 2 Evaluation. A text box reads: Key Finding #1. Program-participating districts rely on multiple data sources to determine areas of teaching vacancies and their causes. “For many years, we’ve been a passive consumer of whom universities are graduating. Through multiple pathways, one … that’s supported by the Teacher Vacancy Grant, we are now no longer a passive consumer. We can say, we have vacancies … in these specific areas and we want to tackle them.”- Chicago Public Schools. An image of an empty classroom serves as the background. Visit https://go.illinois.edu/teachervacancypilot
New Report. IWERC’s qualitative evaluation of the state’s Teacher Vacancy Grant is now available. Image of the report cover. Visit https://go.illinois.edu/teachervacancypilot
Did you know? Kindergarten teachers with an ECE endorsement rated children slightly higher on KIDS, holding student characteristics constant.
Kindergarten Teacher Credentials. 30% of Kindergarten teachers in Illinois held an ECE endorsement, though the proportion is rising.
New Addendum Report! KIDS Series Addendum 1: Teacher and Principal Credentials and KIDS Implementation
Photo of three people standing together at the IES event: Ying Chen (IWERC) on the left, IES Commissioner Liz Albro in the middle, and Jeremy Riel(UIC) on the right.
Want an easy way to keep up with IWERC's news and releases? Subscribe to our newsletter! https://go.illinois.edu/IWERCnewsletter
Sarah Cashdollar (IWERC), Jenny Nagaoka (UChicago Consortium on School Research), and Meg Bates (IWERC) at the IBHE board meeting held at Kennedy-King College.
“Getting Your Foot in the Door”: Challenges and opportunities facing artists and arts graduates in non-arts jobs. New Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership Report. Image of a stage with spotlight. Logos of Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership
Challenges and opportunities facing artists and arts graduates in non-arts jobs. New Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership Report. Quote: “One of the things I love about being an artist is I don’t love capitalism.” Image of a dancer on a stage. Logos of Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership.
Challenges and opportunities facing artists and arts graduates in non-arts jobs. New Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership Report. Quote: I know that I could do most of the jobs that I’m applying for…Its just about accruing enough trust in a gatekeeper to do that.” Image of a stage with spotlight. Logos of Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership.
“Getting Your Foot in the Door”: Challenges and opportunities facing artists and arts graduates in non-arts jobs. New Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership Report. Image of a woman on a stage. Logos of Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership
IWERC's page from the NNERPP yearbook, available here: https://rice.app.box.com/s/sbkf7vayoalpwiq9iwi29pi67mr9x7se
A figure showing that disparities between gender and racial/ethnic groups in economic outcomes shrink as education level rises. For instance, with just the high school diploma, 33% of Latino men from low-income families have a good job, compared to just 5% of Black women. This is a 28 percentage point gap. In contrast, for students with the bachelor's degree, the gap shrinks to 14%. White men have good jobs at an 86% rate, while Black women have good jobs at a 72% rate.
A figure showing that the proportion of students from low-income backgrounds in "good jobs" rises as their educational attainment rises. Only 19% of students with a high school diploma only were in a good job, while 79% of students with a bachelor's degree were in a good job.
A pictogram displaying the number of Illinois students who end up in good jobs as adults, based on their parental earnings as children. Students in the bottom quintile of parental earnings achieved good jobs at a 52% rate, while students in the top quintile achieved good jobs at a 76% rate.
Collage of decorative images of the Illinois early childhood education multilingual learner research-practice partnership at the Multilingual Illinois Conference.
We're hiring! Visiting Senior Research Specialist. https://tinyurl.com/IWERC-hire
Announcing a new grant: SkillTree UIC's Jeremy Riel (PI) and IWERC's Ying Chen have received a new Institute of Education Sciences (IES) grant! About SkillTree: An AI-based learning system designed to be more transparent and interactive. Unlike a traditional chatbot, SkillTree uses intelligent AI agents to map students’ real-time skills and interests in computer science, helping teachers personalize instruction while ensuring AI feedback is explainable and aligned with educational standards. Stage One Goal: Understand teachers’ and students’ needs and perspectives about formative assessment in computing instruction to guide SkillTree design. Next Steps: Use this needs analysis to design SkillTree, an AI-based system that creates personalized visual maps of students’ knowledge and skills to support learning.
10 report covers for each of the computer science education research reports IWERC has released in in 2024-2025. 
IWERC and DPI present The State of Computer Science in Illinois High Schools, Parts 1-5. Thursday, December 11th, 12pm-1pm webinar. Register now!
Rural and town districts need more support for CS programming. Rural and town districts were the least likely to offer various types of CS coursework and least likely to employ a CS-endorsed teacher. A bar chart shows an increasing relationship between the percentage of high school districts in Illinois that offered at least on CS course in 2022 and the more populous a district (e.g., from rural to city). 38% of rural districts and 67% of town districts offer CS courses compared to 85% of suburban and 100% of city districts.
59% is the percentage of high school districts in Illinois that offered at least one CS course. 42% is the percentage of high school districts in Illinois that employed at least one CS-endorsed teacher. Visit go.dpi.uillinois.edu/cser to read the full report.
New reports! Parts 4 and 5 of The State of Computer Science in Illinois High School Series are available now! Accompanied by two images of the report covers. Find the full reports at go.dpi.uillinois.edu/cser
District Progress and Variance in Reducing Teaching Vacancies in Illinois. A Second-Year Evaluation of the Teacher Vacancy Grant Pilot Program. Study Objectives. IWERC explored the following questions: 1.How did districts allocate the first installment of Teacher Vacancy Grant Pilot Program (TVGPP) funds to recruitment and retention programs? 2.How do unfilled teaching positions change from one year prior to grant launch, in SY23, to one year after, in SY25? 3.How do reported causes of teaching vacancies and enacted solution strategies separately predict changes in unfilled teaching positions among participating districts? Key Findings 1.Popular solutions emerged across participants. TVGPP districts prioritized strategies that developed staff credentials for vacant positions, provided professional learning to new and veteran teachers, and distributed direct compensation to new and returning teachers. 2.Overall, vacancies are dropping in TVGPP districts. Comparing SY23 to SY25, unfilled teaching positions have decreased in TVGPP districts (in both rural and urban areas) while increasing in non-TVGPP districts. Controlling for observable district characteristics, TVGPP districts have lowered vacancies more than non-TVGPP districts, on average. This does not mean that the grant caused these changes: An attempt to examine causal effects was inconclusive at this time. 3.Some TVGPP districts reduced teaching vacancies more than other TVGPP districts. TVGPP districts with early success lowering vacancies spent more on developing staff credentials, recruitment, teacher support, and hiring support staff. They also tended to be urban, larger in size, had higher average teacher salaries, and were in Evidence-Based Funding Tier 1, the tier of schools furthest from funding adequacy.
Characteristics of Districts with Early Success. Reducing unfilled teaching positions in participating districts is a central aim of the Teacher Vacancy Grant. After one year of program implementation, participating districts with greater success tended to have the following characteristics. Below is a list of four icons with text. Icon one is of buildings with text that reads, urban (i.e., city or suburban) locale. Icon two is of a teacher in front of students pointing to a blackboard with text that reads, higher average teacher salaries. Icon three is of three people with text that reads, larger student enrollment numbers. Icon four is of a magnifying glass focusing on a bar chart. The text below reads, further from funding adequacy (Evidence-Based Funding Tier 1). Visit https://go.illinois.edu/teachervacancypilot.
Common strategies to address teacher shortages. An icon of a graduation cap has text underneath that reads, pathway programs for non-licensed staff pursuing licensure. Next, an icon of a certificate has text underneath that reads, formal growth opportunities for licensed staff pursuing additional endorsements. Third, an icon of a gift placed in a hand has text underneath that reads, short-term stipends such as hiring and retention bonuses. And finally, an icon of books has text underneath that reads, expanded professional learning opportunities. Additional text below reads: Districts participating in the Teacher Vacancy Grant were extended wide latitude to enact recruitment and retention strategies that fill their specific teaching vacancies. Visit https://go.illinois.edu/teachervacancypilot.
Statewide trends in unfilled teaching positions. Line graph representing the number of unfilled teaching positions in three lines: all districts statewide (N = 859), non-participating districts (n = 689), and participating districts (n = 170) for school years 2023 through 2025 (x-axis). From school years 2023 to 2025, the statewide line increased from 3,320 to 3,496 total unfilled teaching positions. The non-participating districts’ line increased from 473 to 862 total unfilled teaching positions. The participating districts’ line decreased from 2,847 to 2,634 total unfilled teaching positions. Text beneath graph reads: Since 2023, unfilled teaching positions have decreased in districts participating in the Teacher Vacancy Grant, while increasing in non-participating districts. Visit https://go.illinois.edu/teachervacancypilot
IWERC and DPI present The State of Computer Science in Illinois High Schools, Parts 1-5. Thursday, December 11th, 12pm-1pm webinar. Register now!
IWERC gives thanks to all our partners, funders, communities, schools, and families that support our work every day of the year.
New Report. IWERC’s second-year evaluation of the state’s Teacher Vacancy Grant is now available. Image of the report cover. Visit https://go.illinois.edu/teachervacancypilot