We welcome two returning guests to the podcast this week. Today we welcome back IL State Senator Cristina Pacione-Zayas and Managing Director of Corps Member Leadership at Teach for America, Jason Dones. We’re going to discuss the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading standards that Illinois state lawmakers recently adopted, which will elevate the training teachers receive statewide to better meet the needs of students. We’re going to delve deeper into what these standards are, how they were developed, what these standards mean for Puerto Rican and the wider BIPOC student population and address some of the criticism lawmakers and right wing organizations have charged against them in their attempt to get these standards blocked from adoption in the lead up to their adoption vote in the state Congress.