(WTTW News)

Education leaders from across Illinois are pitching a new statewide learning strategy focused on school safety, finding and keeping high-quality teachers and enhancing postsecondary success.

That new plan, called Vision 2030, was announced Friday and is built around three main pillars: future-focused learning, shared accountability, and predictable funding.

“Vision 2030 seeks to put systems and processes in place that support all school districts throughout the state in sharing what works for our kids and our communities, while also preserving local flexibility and leadership so that the best decisions are made closest to home,” Kimberly A. Small, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards, said in a statement.

In addition to the IASB, Vision 2030 was developed in collaboration with the Illinois Association of School Administrators, the Illinois Principals Association, the Illinois Association of School Business Officials and the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents.

The plan includes recommendations to transform Illinois’ standardized testing system into a more timely and useful measure of student proficiency and growth; attract a diverse educator pipeline; protect the “integrity and funding” of the state’s evidence-based funding formula; and reform pensions to help strengthen public education.

Brent Clark, IASA executive director, said the future-focused learning aspects of Vision 2030 need to help reshape Illinois schools and classrooms and redefine student success “to reflect and prepare students for all the different ways that the world and economy continue to change,”

The plan — which seeks additional input from parents, educators, policy leaders, elected officials, and the general public — is centered around a platform focused on student and school safety, attracting and retaining high-quality teachers, enhancing postsecondary success and more effectively measuring what works well in schools.

Vision 2030 follows in the steps of its predecessor, Vision 2020, the first-of-its-kind blueprint, which led to legislative action on school funding, teacher recruitment, college and career readiness, and the state’s accountability model.

“We have to acknowledge that students learn best, and educators teach most effectively, when they feel safe and connected to one another and to their communities,” the organizations behind Vision 2030 said in a joint statement. “This is the single most important thing we can do to support both academic achievement and individual well-being — and it is something that has to be considered in our instructional approach, curriculum, student support services, facilities and finances to ensure that local districts have the resources needed to ensure their school buildings are safe.”