Illinois Consortium to Advance English Learner Program Effectiveness

The Illinois consortium to advance English learner program effectiveness is a grassroots effort of over 100 school districts across Illinois. The goal of the Consortium is to better understand the impact of EL programming on English proficiency, improve program quality, and to advocate for changes to state policy.

Register for Workshops

October 22, 2026 — Fall EL Consortium Workshop, 1:00–3:00 p.m. (Location TBA)
April 20, 2027 — Spring EL Consortium Workshop, 9:00–11:00 a.m. (Location TBA)

Guidance

Why Illinois Needs to Revisit its Reclassification Policy for English Learners

June 3, 2026

Consortium Objectives

As a community, we believe that local flexibility of EL programming is necessary to maximize student success. To that end, we have come together on behalf of students to assemble the necessary data sets to improve our practices, strengthen our programs, and advocate for more appropriate state policy. Our three objective are:

1

To analyze EL data across school districts in order to guide state and local policy.

2

To document the relationship between EL/Bilingual practices and student outcomes.

3

To cultivate a professional learning community among EL professionals to share practices in the spirit of continuous quality improvement.

Why participate?

In order to accomplish our goals, we need to work together as a community to document the impact of EL programming on local school districts and students. The EL Consortium will help leaders accurately analyze students’ outcomes disaggregated by program model, years in the program, grade level, school, etc. Districts will have the capability to drill down on the data to determine appropriate next steps and necessary program adjustments. Participating in the Consortium also provides districts local evidence of what is working for students in their community.

Who are we?

The EL Consortium's Advisory Board is made up of district leaders from across the sate of Illinois.

View Advisory Board

Photo: Jean Barbanente, Superintendent of DuPage High School District 88 and the lead representative for the Consortium speaking at an EL Consortium event.

How is the work of the consortium aligned with Illinois Vision 2030?

One of the overarching themes of Vision 2030 is to reform the mandate process to allow more local decision making and flexibility. EL related mandates are impacting school districts financially and operationally, with limited statewide evidence that said mandates are universally good for students. Vision 2030 advocates for reviewing existing requirements to make sure the benefits align with the financial and operational realities schools face. This is exactly what we are trying to accomplish with the consortium by raising awareness of EL program model effectiveness.

What is ECRA's role?

As the Consortium began to take shape, it became apparent that we needed a trusted and capable data and research partner to help us accomplish our goals. ECRA has been a strategic partner to Vision 2030 and works with hundreds of local school districts across Illinois. They were the obvious choice given their deep understanding of Illinois education policy and their unmatched expertise related to data science and research.

Dr. John Gatta, CEO of ECRA Group describing the research process at an EL Consortium event.