HB5020 Update
An update on developments with HB 5020 in Springfield today
On April 3, 2024, the Higher Education Committee held a hearing and among the bills heard was HB5020, an amendment to the Dual Credit Quality Act. Multiple people representing interest groups testified and shared their positions, and ultimately, there was a commitment to continue negotiations on an additional amendment to the legislation that is currently being drafted with additional stakeholder feedback. The Illinois P-20 Network will continue to do two things as this process moves forward:
- Share updates to the Dual Credit Think Tank, specifically, and to the field broadly.
- Provide opportunities for practitioners from both postsecondary institutions and school districts to share their feedback on key elements of discussion that are still being considered with the next amendment to HB5020.
Once the amendment in development is complete, HB5020 will come back to the Higher Education Committee for review.
As a reminder, through the legislative process, there may be changes to items listed below. This list simply captures key elements of HB5020 that have been agreed upon at this time. HB5020…
- Expands the purpose of the Dual Credit Quality Act (DCQA) to emphasize the importance of collaborative local partnerships to provide meaningful dual credit opportunities to students and close opportunity gaps.
- Requires school districts and community colleges to each designate a liaison and begin partnership negotiations within 60 calendar days of the high school’s initial request.
- Offers parity in Priority Career Pathway courses with Illinois Articulation Initiative course offerings to expand opportunities for students for Priority Career Pathways that already exist at the community college.
- Uses the standards established by the Developmental Education Reform Act (DERA) for student eligibility measures that recognize a broader range of student achievement, and ICCB will begin collecting data on what multiple measures are being used.
- Requires clear communication plans and advanced notice for students and families so they understand opportunities for early college credit and the necessary prerequisites.
- Stipulates that course evaluations should occur within the same school year the course is taught to maintain rigorous standards.
- Requires community college districts to reinvest revenues received from school districts for dual credit programming back into dual credit programming.
- Offers dual credit courses equal weight with Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses.
- Prohibits dual credit partnerships with for-profit institutions.
- Codifies the community college’s right of first refusal.
- Requires all institutions (4-year, 2-year, public, private, in-state, out-of-state) offering dual credit to follow the elements of a dual credit partnership agreement established in section 16 of the DCQA.
- Further limits the use of out-of-state providers by requiring high schools to demonstrate to the IBHE that it has taken appropriate steps to use in-state institutions and must provide rationale if using an out-of-state institution.
- Reconvenes the Model Partnership Agreement Committee biennially.
- Defines academic credentials as master’s degree within the discipline to be taught or any master’s degree and not more than 18 graduate hours in the discipline to be taught.
- Extends professional development plans in perpetuity to address the ongoing teacher shortage and growing student demand for dual credit coursework.
- Entrusts the annual course review to the higher learning partner’s faculty department chair and the chief academic officer (or their designees).
- Creates the Dual Credit Committee, a 29-member committee of secondary and postsecondary representatives to define two specific components: (1) the appropriate graduate coursework within disciplines covered by the Illinois Articulation Initiative (IAI) for academically qualified and interim qualified instructors; and, (2) the equivalent experience required to be a fully qualified Career and Technical Education instructor.
- If a community college disapproves of a course request…
- Creates a mechanism within ICCB to review instructor credential denials, which provides another avenue to resolve disputes between a high school and community college and keep more courses available through local partnerships rather than alternative providers.
- Allows high schools to engage an alternative provider for a particular course if their partnering community college disapproves of that course request.
- Permits a community college to reevaluate the course request annually to approve the course and offer the course as originally proposed.
In addition to the updates that are being provided by the Illinois P-20 Network, anyone can view the current text of HB5020 as well as its current status on the Illinois General Assembly website.
