20 Comments - Papa Legba - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 4:26 pm: Of course there will be backlash. How many times has Blago promised and not delivered? Maybe persons in the Gov’s party have finally caught on and are tired of getting hosed when they support him. Besides, what good can come from a 6 page plan to sell/lease the Lotto? Oh, that’s right, details and an actual plan just make things harder to pervert down the road. Accountability, what a pain in the behind. - 'The Gay Governor' - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 4:56 pm: Just as Blago has consistently promised and not delivered, he has consistently trotted out plans (and made random statements) without anticipating how they might be received. They do a poll and figure that people will love the governor for announcing a “bold” education plan, but they aren’t in the least bit prepared to answer questions like, ‘What does the state do in four years after you’ve gotten schools used to a higher level of funding?’ and ‘How do you plan to ensure that the funding is evenly distributed?’ Honestly, it’s nothing short of astonishing that time and again we see the governor and his people dumbfounded at the most rudimentary questions about their supposedly “bold” plans. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 5:02 pm: Your posts are fine, TGG, but I really wish you’d choose another screen name. - B Hicks - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 5:19 pm: And what is stopping the two Honorable Representatives from introducing a bill of their own in the General Assembly that addresses school funding? - 'TGG' - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 5:24 pm: Tax-hike proponents have introduced bills to hike taxes — Meeks did last year — but they went nowhere. I think the point is that as long at the governor is going to talk about helping schools, then those tax-hike proponents think he ought to use his bully pulpit to push for real change. He does command a lot more attention then they do. - Nickname - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 5:27 pm: Rich, Media, and Everyone else: If the gov was serious about this plan he would have lined his ducks in a row before announcing the plan. When he proposed AllKids and the selling of the student loan portfolio he made sure that prominent necessary endorsements were lined up and ready to go before he announced his plan. He realized he would take some flak for the lottery plan but that is better than having Meeks run. In his mind it was a good trade-off. Now he can use Dems and Repubs as an excuse for why the plan did not go. Smell what the gov is shoveling in move on to the next story that actually will mean something to Illinois residents. The real concern which is likely the items actually on his agenda if he gets reelected is the selling of the tollway and further privatization of the student loan portfolio (unless it is sold for so cheap that it is all gone this year). - respectful - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 5:33 pm: Stick a fork in the lotto scheme. It’s dead. Will Meeks realize he’s been had? - Tessa - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 5:41 pm: ‘Tis such a sad state of affairs, isn’t it? Meeks bought into this, thinking he got such a good thing for the schools. Bravo for the Gov for doing right by the school kids. The more people complain and ask questions, the more he has to open up about it, the less likely this is to happen and then Meeks doesn’t get what he asked for. And the schools get nothing. Tax hike proponents, the people from A+ Illinois, etc. aren’t going to get what they want either. Funding for other programs that need help are going to get screwed to in the long run and Illinois will continue to go down the crapper. It’s a sad, sad thing. - anon - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 6:42 pm: HELLLLOOOO! This whole plan (scheme) was cooked up just to get Meeks out of the race and was designed to be so out in left field that it gave the downstate democrats an issue to distance themselves from the unpopular Governor during the upcoming elections. They probably have no intentions of moving it forward after the elections. Sad, very sad that they are using school children to further their causes. Again. - Tired of the Mess - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 8:09 pm: Is anyone surprised by this? The Goldman Sachs report is off limits, keeping the $10 billion figure (inflated or real) from the legislature and the public. This whole thing is just like the rest of his proposals–blow a bunch of sunshine up someone’s a– and hope no one notices that there is no substance and fewer details. He had Madigan and Jones bail him out on the ‘All-Kids’ insurance program for the ridiculously wealthy, he had Lisa Madigan unknowingly bail him out of the sale of the Thompson/Illinois Center. His plans never contain details, just fluff. - in awe - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 9:29 pm: How dare the Gov not offer the detail ryan topinka edgar had in their education plans, not only was theirs not or have been laid out if ryan and edgars plans would of worked let alone developed we wouldnt be in the spot we are in now. DAAAAAAAAA - Anon - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 9:39 pm: In Awe: You apparently don’t know anything about Illinois history. Gov Edgar tried several times to fix the tax system supporting schools. He even called a special session. But, since there are no leaders with cahones in Illinois willing to stand up and do the right thing it failed. He didn’t beat a dead horse. Ryan never tried or claimed to have an education plan and Topinka hasn’t had one b/c she isn’t the Governor. Blago has never really had a plan for education either except put more money in, which I guess is fine (except his math - he says $3.8B which you can only get to by counting stuff 4 times). Anyway, this new plan isn’t a plan at all. It’s rehashed crap that he has thrown out over his 3 years in office that didn’t fly the first time (or the second or third) and he is throwing it out there again as some big “bold” plan. It is clearly a buy off and Rev. Meeks was stupid to fall for it. - Anon - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 9:41 pm: Let me correct one thing I said. Ryan did have a plan - 50% of revenues for education. He just defined revenues in the most bastardized way to make his “plan” irrelevant. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 9:58 pm: I doubt this represents a conspiracy between friends. If Blagojevich intended this legislation as a joke, somebody forgot to tell the Senate Democrats, and I don’t think Emil Jones is laughing. Blagojevich has put Emil in a terrible spot once again, walking him down the plank just as he did on the tax hike and the whole Com Ed/Marty Cohen debacle. Blagojevich should have atleast warned Sen. Jones and Sen. DeValle that he had no intention of ever passing this thing, or that it included a massive $4 billion cliff in four years, or that he wasn’t prepared to back up his revenue projections. Now, Jones is on record as supporting the plan, which leaves alot of the voting public in downstate wondering: where does Sen. DeMuzio stand? What about Sen. Claiborne? How about Sen. Haine or Halvorsen, or candidates Mike Kelleher or Dave Koehler? If Blagojevich doesn’t drop this plan soon, some reporter is finally going to get around to calling some of these downstate State Senators, and God help them if they don’t distance themselves from the Governor on this one. Voters were pretty forgiving when Republicans accused Forby of shifting state funding to Chicago when it was a bogus claim, but when the charges are real and it involves our schools, I doubt they’ll be so nice. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 10:00 pm: Scratch Kelleher, I meant Mike Frerichs. Both nice guys. - Old Elephant - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 11:47 pm: While I agree with much of what anon 9:39 says, I’m also a little tired of this mentality that every candidate has to have a “plan” to “reform” education in Illinois. Here’s what I’ve learned in over 20 years in Illinois: The state school aid formula is the worst system for funding education EXCEPT for every other system that’s ever been proposed. The fact is, in combination with mandated categoricals it strikes a reasonable balance between Chicago, downstate and the suburbs. Any significant change is going to take money away from someone and give it to someone else — and most people would prefer the status quo to starting a regional war over funding. Switching income taxes for property taxes would be a huge benefit to business and agriculture — if you support corporate tax breaks, then you should support a shift away from property taxes to income taxes. Bottom line is that property-rich corporations and farmers would pay less and the individual taxpayer would pay more. There is no way to prevent “tax creep” unless you completely eliminate property taxes for education — hard to do and probably would get thrown out in a court case. How can you deny local taxpayers the right to tax themselves if they so choose? Everyone talks about local control, but they don’t mean it. Every meaningful attempt to reduce mandates dies because someone’s ox gets gored if you eliminate a mandate. For my money, I’d vote for a candidate who says: “My education plan is very simple: we will never have enough money to do everything we would like to do. So, I’m going to do my best to find as much money as I can to fund basic programs first.” - Goodbye Napoleon - Thursday, Jun 1, 06 @ 11:48 pm: Rich - why so harsh on TGG? Can’t Jim McGreevy just be himself in the blogosphere? Come on now. - Anon. - Friday, Jun 2, 06 @ 12:11 am: I think Blago is happy the everyone is talking about his stupid education plan instead of his corruption problems. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Jun 2, 06 @ 5:53 am: Old Elephant - You and I are only 5% away from agreeing. The fact of the matter is, every candidate must have a plan to reform education, because that is what the voters want. A recent survey by NIU of over 1200 Illinoisians statewide once again ranked education as the number one concern. What is hamstringing politicians is that, contrary to the minority voices out there who say “we can’t just throw money at schools”, that is exactly what voters want. 75% say they want the state to increase funding for public education. Outside of Chicago, the vast majority of the public rates their own local schools as good or excellent, but 52% say that the biggest problem with schools is a lack of funding. 53% say that they support a tax increase to do it. So, the problem that the politicians have is that they have all been offering reform plans that are far too complicated, far more fragile than what the public wants. The main thing the public wants is more money, period. - ron - Friday, Jun 2, 06 @ 10:18 am: yellow dog. public wants more money because the politicians keep saying more money is the answer to better education. they don;t want to address the real reform issues. we have had year after year of more new schools built, higher pay for administation and teachers. bottom line education expenditures were way above the level of inflation during the late 90’s and the outcome has been incresed dropout rates and lower act, sat test scores and students without adequate skills for college or a career. more money without accountability and real goals will do nothing to improve the quality of education. we have all seen the result of failed eduction policy over the last 30 years. my gosh, we are still operating the school year based on an agrarian school year. i guess, a lot of those inner city students need three months off to tend to the crops. real reform and accountability mean the same dollars would result in better outcomes. get off of this need more money campaign. the habitual anthem of the democrats to pander to the teachers unions. 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