Don’t Forget About Our Latino Students
Category
Blogs
Written By
By Caroline Sanchez Crozier, League of the United Latin American Citizens
Date
Feb 16, 2023
Now–more than ever–is the time to take action in fixing the state’s broken formula to fund education. Illinois legislators must change our outdated, inequitable funding system that gives neediest students the least support.
My personal experience as an immigrant and English Learner drives my passion and advocacy to represent the voices of Latino parents. As a professional and EdTech consultant, I visit schools throughout the state and see the challenges educators face every day with limited resources and growing student needs.
Logic tells us that where there are greater needs, there should be greater resources. However, with the current formula, there are larger student to teacher ratios and greater disparities in innovative technology resources especially for districts with English learners. The English learning student population is rapidly growing in our state and schools with greater Latino/English Learners are consistently getting less access to more effective personalized learning opportunities. This is a violation of our civil rights.
As a volunteer advocate for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), I participate in leadership discussions within our communities and speak to our state legislators about the need to fix the formula now. Lawmakers need to take ownership of our state’s worst-in-the-nation ranking in providing equitable education funding. We are failing our students.
Illinois citizens, voters and taxpayers– we must each contact our legislators to demand they take action to FIX THE FORMULA NOW!