NORMAL - May 4-8 is Teacher Appreciation Week, a time to recognize the caring, dedicated professionals in the vital field of education. There is plenty of reason to celebrate at Illinois State.
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Founded as the state’s first public institution of higher learning in 1857, ISU was a “normal school,” a term for teacher training. That was the mission of the university for its first 108 years of existence until October 1965, when the Illinois Board of Higher Education authorized academic programs that did not require teacher certification. The new academic programs became effective in September 1966.
The excellence of Illinois State in producing top teaching professionals was evident early on. At the university’s 25th anniversary celebration in 1882, 968 former ISU students were teaching in 88 of the 102 counties of Illinois. Another 104 held teaching positions in seventeen other states and territories.
By the time ISU turned fifty in 1907, some ninety-one graduates were either presidents or professors in other normal universities.
That same year, ISU graduates had written or published 112 volumes, mainly texts, some of which had become standards in the field. Those numbers would grow exponentially in the century that followed.
Today, Illinois State remains a national leader in the field of education. The university was the second-largest producer of teachers in the United States from 2016-21, and was the nation’s eighth-largest producer of elementary education majors in 2018.
Overall, one of six teachers in the state of Illinois hold a degree from ISU. At least one ISU graduate is employed in 87 percent of the public school districts in Illinois.
More ISU alums have earned National Board certification than graduates of any other Midwestern university.
The longtime laboratory for education at Illinois State, University High School, was ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top 20 public high schools in the state. That source also listed Thomas Metcalf School as among the top 8% in elementary schools in Illinois, as well as the top 3% for the state’s middle schools.
One top source, College Factual, has rated ISU as the top school for special education in both the state and the nation.
Some 62,000 alumni of the education department at Illinois State now live and work in all 50 states, as well as 69 countries worldwide. It’s part the indelible impact of teachers from Illinois State, from the smallest villages to the largest cities around the globe.
