ICTA & IIFA Member:
Thank you for your continued membership in the IIFA and Illinois Communication and Theatre Association. Your membership within the organization demonstrates your ongoing commitment to promoting best practices in communication and theatre education at all educational levels within the state of Illinois. Currently, the state of communication education at the secondary level needs your support.
Prior to 2004, Illinois had separate teaching endorsements within English Language Arts (ELA) for Speech Communication, Language Arts, Journalism, and English. In 2004, all four of these certificates were combined into one English Language Arts certificate. With this change, English Education preparation programs were not required to include classes in Communication or Journalism. As a result, there are secondary level educators who are licensed as highly qualified to teach oral communication, which they are teaching without taking a single college course in that content area. This means that high school students in Illinois are not receiving quality instruction in oral communication. As the Common Core State Standards are being implemented in Illinois, speaking and listening skills are a major component of the standards and will be assessed with the new PARCC assessment that is aligned to the standards.
At the September 2013 convention, the ICTA Executive Board proposed a position statement, advocating that the Illinois State Board of Education adopt a content specific endorsement within English Language Arts for Oral Communication. Now that our position statement has been adopted by the membership, the ICTA Board is working to advocate to ISBE for this change. We will submit a proposal for consideration of public requests for rulemaking that asks ISBE to create three ELA Content Specific Endorsements. Aligning more closely with the Common Core State Standards, these endorsements would be English and Speaking and Listening. The goal behind this is to ensure students in Illinois have the highest quality education from trained instructors.
This is where we need your help. As ICTA begins advocating for this important change, we would like to show ISBE just how large our voice is. We are collecting letters of support to include in our proposal for rule change. We would appreciate if you would show your support for this proposal by writing a letter of support. In your letter, please establish your position within your institution, your experience in the field, and why you would like to see ISBE make this change. Further, we encourage you to solicit letters of support from others in your school and department, including administrators and Regional Offices of Education. Each letter we receive will be included in the proposal and will illustrate to ISBE that this change is needed and supported by members of secondary and higher education institutions across the state. A copy of the position statement and a sample form letter is included in this e-mail.
Please feel free to share this and encourage your peers to submit letters as well. Letters can be submitted to ICTA Secretary Anna Wright at amwrigh@ilstu.edu by March 1st.
Sincerely yours,
ICTA Executive Board
Form Letter
POSITION
Thank you for your continued membership in the IIFA and Illinois Communication and Theatre Association. Your membership within the organization demonstrates your ongoing commitment to promoting best practices in communication and theatre education at all educational levels within the state of Illinois. Currently, the state of communication education at the secondary level needs your support.
Prior to 2004, Illinois had separate teaching endorsements within English Language Arts (ELA) for Speech Communication, Language Arts, Journalism, and English. In 2004, all four of these certificates were combined into one English Language Arts certificate. With this change, English Education preparation programs were not required to include classes in Communication or Journalism. As a result, there are secondary level educators who are licensed as highly qualified to teach oral communication, which they are teaching without taking a single college course in that content area. This means that high school students in Illinois are not receiving quality instruction in oral communication. As the Common Core State Standards are being implemented in Illinois, speaking and listening skills are a major component of the standards and will be assessed with the new PARCC assessment that is aligned to the standards.
At the September 2013 convention, the ICTA Executive Board proposed a position statement, advocating that the Illinois State Board of Education adopt a content specific endorsement within English Language Arts for Oral Communication. Now that our position statement has been adopted by the membership, the ICTA Board is working to advocate to ISBE for this change. We will submit a proposal for consideration of public requests for rulemaking that asks ISBE to create three ELA Content Specific Endorsements. Aligning more closely with the Common Core State Standards, these endorsements would be English and Speaking and Listening. The goal behind this is to ensure students in Illinois have the highest quality education from trained instructors.
This is where we need your help. As ICTA begins advocating for this important change, we would like to show ISBE just how large our voice is. We are collecting letters of support to include in our proposal for rule change. We would appreciate if you would show your support for this proposal by writing a letter of support. In your letter, please establish your position within your institution, your experience in the field, and why you would like to see ISBE make this change. Further, we encourage you to solicit letters of support from others in your school and department, including administrators and Regional Offices of Education. Each letter we receive will be included in the proposal and will illustrate to ISBE that this change is needed and supported by members of secondary and higher education institutions across the state. A copy of the position statement and a sample form letter is included in this e-mail.
Please feel free to share this and encourage your peers to submit letters as well. Letters can be submitted to ICTA Secretary Anna Wright at amwrigh@ilstu.edu by March 1st.
Sincerely yours,
ICTA Executive Board
Form Letter
POSITION