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For Immediate Release
May 20, 2005
State Board of Education takes action to reduce hundreds
of pages of administrative rules
Continues Board efforts
to reduce red tape and
bureaucracy that burden Illinois
schools
Springfield, Ill. –The State Board of Education
took action yesterday to continue its work to reduce the
thousands of pages of administrative rules that burden
Illinois schools. In action at its regular monthly meeting
on May 19, the State Board unanimously approved moving
forward with the elimination of over 100 pages of administrative
rules and made amendments to other rules to ease the administrative
burden on schools.
“The Governor made it clear that one of the new
State Board’s first priorities was to eliminate the
unnecessary rules the Board was imposing on schools,”
said State Board Chairman Jesse Ruiz. “We’ve
received valuable input from educators around the state
and with the dedicated work of our agency staff we’re
making great progress. In every case, we’re taking
action on rules that bring no benefit to students and
cause schools unnecessary work. Schools need to be able
to focus on teaching and not on filling out reams of needless
paperwork for the State Board.”
The Board’s rule reduction action this month will
help streamline the teacher certification process, remove
difficulties in the certification of speech and language
pathologists, limit requirements for filing teacher evaluation
plans with ISBE, eliminate unnecessary school building
inventories and remove bureaucracy from a school’s
textbook loan program.
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) continues
to seek suggestions for the rules reduction initiative
through a special email account, lessredtape@isbe.net,
through its interaction with schools and districts throughout
Illinois and from agency staff. Once a suggestion is brought
forward, the ISBE Legal Department begins a review process
of the rule to determine if elimination or amendment to
the rule would help schools.
This month’s action brings the total reduction effort
to approximately 400 pages since the Board began its work
last September. A complete review and overhaul of the
Illinois State Board of Education’s 2,800 pages of
rules will continue over the coming months. The rules
reductions approved by the board will not take effect
until approved by the Joint Committee on Administrative
Rules.
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