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Illinois

Verified against current sources (2026-05-10) Cite this page ↓

Illinois offers Bilingual Education both as a standalone certification and as an add-on endorsement; ELD/ESL is available both as a standalone license and as an add-on endorsement. SEI training is not mandated for all teachers. As of 2023, 16.4% of public-school students are classified English Learners (NCES). Re-verified against current SEA sources on 2026-05-10.

16.4%
classified ELs (2023-10-01)
view trend →
Bil + ELD
credential types offered

Credentials

Bilingual Education Endorsement

  • Standalone certification
  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Unknown
Coursework
Required
Practicum
Required
Subject test
Not required
Language proficiency
Required

English as a New Language (ENL) / ESL Endorsement

  • Standalone certification
  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Unknown
Coursework
Required
Practicum
Required
Subject test
Not required

Distinguishes ENL (English-only) from ESL (allows native-language support). 18 SH coursework + 100-hr practicum required for the subsequent endorsement.

Sheltered English Instruction (SEI)

Not mandated for all teachers.

No SEI mandate. District-level TBE/TPI required under 105 ILCS 5/14C and 23 IAC 228 — TBE for attendance centers with 20+ same-language ELs, TPI for fewer. 23 IAC 24.140 takes effect 2026-07-01 and drops explicit ELL language from the IPTS; flag for next refresh.

State policy signals

Seal of Biliteracy

Recognition for graduating students proficient in English plus another language.

Adopted in 2013.

Source: sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab)

ELP assessment

Annual English Language Proficiency test used for EL identification and reclassification.

ACCESS for ELLs · WIDA Consortium member.

Source: wida.wisc.edu (opens in a new tab)

History of licensure

Dated policy and verification events shaping this state's EL teacher credentials.

  1. Illinois Transitional Bilingual Education Act enacted (PA 78-727)

    Public Act 78-727 created Article 14C of the Illinois School Code (105 ILCS 5/14C), one of the strongest state TBE mandates in the country. Article 14C requires any public school attendance center with 20 or more EL students of the same language background to operate a Transitional Bilingual Education program for at least three years per student, and any school with fewer than 20 to provide a Transitional Program of Instruction (TPI) — i.e., ESL-based services. The 1973 statute is the legal source of Illinois's bilingual-and-ESL endorsement structure and of the state's bilingual-teacher Type-29 credential lineage that 23 IAC Part 25 later modernized. Illinois followed Massachusetts (1971), New Mexico (1973), and Texas (1973) in mandating bilingual instruction by statute.

    law.justia.com (opens in a new tab)

  2. Illinois adopts State Seal of Biliteracy (PA 098-0560)

    Illinois became one of the first states to authorize a State Seal of Biliteracy on high-school diplomas, certifying graduates' proficiency in English and one or more world languages. ISBE administers the program with district-level participation; the affordance is now embedded in graduation pathways and feeds into the Bilingual/ESL teacher pipeline.

    sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab)

  3. EPAA 29(100) document analysis (Leider, Colombo & Nerlino, 2021)

    Leider, Colombo & Nerlino published in Education Policy Analysis Archives 29(100) a comprehensive document analysis of every state and DC's bilingual, ELD/ESL, and SEI teacher-credentialing requirements, professional teaching standards mentions, and EL-percentage figures, based on primary SEA sources collected October–December 2019. The 2019 coding of Illinois's EL-credentialing landscape is preserved as a temporally-anchored research baseline against which the catalog's later verifications are framed.

    doi.org (opens in a new tab)

  4. 23 IAC 24.140 supersedes 24.130 as Illinois Professional Teaching Standards

    ISBE's revised Illinois Professional Teaching Standards (23 IAC 24.140) take effect 2026-07-01, replacing 23 IAC 24.130. The new standards drop the explicit 'English language learners' phrasing that 24.130 carried, shifting EL-relevant competencies under broader 'diverse learners' language. Flag for re-coding `professionalStandardsMentions.el` after the transition.

    ilga.gov (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. [1] Illinois State Board of Education (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  2. [2] Leider, Colombo & Nerlino (2021), EPAA 29(100). Tables 2-5 + Appendix A. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  3. [3] ISBE — Subsequent Teaching Endorsements (Bilingual + ESL) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  4. [4] ISBE — Educator License with Stipulations (ELS-TBE pathway) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  5. [5] ISBE — Pathways to Teaching ESL (May 2026 one-pager) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  6. [6] 23 IAC 24.130 — Illinois Professional Teaching Standards (operative through 2026-06-30) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  7. [7] WIDA Consortium — Illinois page (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  8. [8] Seal of Biliteracy — Illinois (sealofbiliteracy.org) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  9. [9] NCES Digest of Education Statistics, Table 204.20 (English Learners in Public Schools, fall 2021) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  10. [10] Illinois State Board of Education, 2024 Illinois Report Card (English Learner data) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-10

Cite this page

Site content is published under CC BY 4.0. When citing a fact from this page, please cite both projectcert and the original Leider et al. (2021) paper the dataset extends.

APA
projectcert. (2026, May 10). Illinois EL teacher certification. https://projectcert.org/states/il/
Leider, C. M., Colombo, M. W., & Nerlino, E. (2021). Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29(100). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5279
BibTeX
@misc{projectcert_il_2026,
  author  = {{projectcert}},
  title   = {{Illinois EL teacher certification}},
  year    = {2026},
  url     = {https://projectcert.org/states/il/},
  urldate = {2026-05-10},
  note    = {Last verified 2026-05-10}
}
@article{leider2021decentralization,
  author  = {Leider, Christine M. and Colombo, Michaela W. and Nerlino, Erika},
  title   = {{Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs?}},
  journal = {Education Policy Analysis Archives},
  volume  = {29},
  number  = {100},
  year    = {2021},
  doi     = {10.14507/epaa.29.5279}
}

See the methodology for how these data were collected, or the glossary for term definitions.