54 Comments - The Captain - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:23 pm: The obvious overlap with Rauner, Emanuel, Goldner and the teachers unions is they all have strong feelings on charter schools. For a while now I’ve been surprised that the Speaker isn’t doing all sorts of things on charter schools just to put all these various pieces in motion to either get leverage or to try to gain some advantage. - Ducky LaMoore - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:28 pm: ===GROUP TO RAUNER: ILLINOIS GOV’T IS NOT A DICTATORSHIP!=== RAUNER TO GROUP: SAYS WHO?! - IlliniChuck - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:28 pm: Yeah it is so undemocratic to give parents choice and to ask schools to compete - that is straight out of Marx. - PublicServant - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:29 pm: Queue Rev. Meeks to be taking questions on this in 3-2-1… - out of touch - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:31 pm: Irrespective of your opinion on charter schools, this is the oldest budget trick in the book. The foot in the door. It’s how prisons get built at the state level and air craft carriers at the federal level. Start the project and go so far that, at some point, you can’t turn back. It’s also part of the reason we’re in the budget morass that we are, and have perennial structural deficits. So, before Rauner will even discuss THIS year’s budget (5 months late, no less) he’s putting additional pressures on future budgets. This is an epic unfunded mandate in the making. - LTSW - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:32 pm: $42.5 million does not seem to be enough to open 48 schools IMO. - Anon221 - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:34 pm: A charter school shouldn’t be treated like soft-money grants. If your area wants one, then have a LONG term plan in place to fund it. Otherwise it does become a “cannibal” situation. I’m sure there are at least (/s) 48 schools in Illinois that could benefit from some TLC outside of forming new schools in their areas. - IlliniChuck - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:35 pm: @- LTSW ===$42.5 million does not seem to be enough to open 48 schools IMO.=== hopefully It will go much farther once Rauner pushes though a repeal of prevailing wage requirements. - JS Mill - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:42 pm: State supt Tomy Smith addressed this grant about a month ago. Per his statement the grant was not solely for charter schools, only a small amount. So far he has been good for his word so I will give him the benefit of the doubt. ISBE board could have other ideas though. Still, seems like a tempest in a teapot. - Phenomynous - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:54 pm: Last I checked, we have statutory caps on the amount of allowable charter schools in the state. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:56 pm: Governors own… - Casual observer - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:57 pm: If federal funds are involved, isn’t paying prevailing wage required? - Anon. - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 3:58 pm: ==But the grant only covers start-up funding, with no funds to run schools once they open, thus cannibalizing the same inadequate public dollars funding existing schools.== But since every student attending a charter school is one less student attending one of the existing public schools, the existing schools will need less money, right? As with so many matters, the issues are more complex and subtle than the advocates on either side will admit, which wouldn’t be so bad if the media would do more than parrot the talking heads. - Sillies - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:00 pm: Rich - some unrelated user feedback coming. Please set up your website such that when a visitor clicks on a link that takes you to another news source that the linked page opens in a new browser window/tab. I can’t count how many times I’ve closed my browser tab after reading a linked item, thinking I’d just go back to capitalfax only to find I’ve shut down the tab where capitalfax just was. You are effectively driving traffic away from your site. Not sure if this makes sense but please consider. I bet most charter schools do this (trying for context relevancy). - Rich Miller - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:02 pm: ===when a visitor clicks on a link that takes you to another news source that the linked page opens in a new browser window/tab=== I prefer personal responsibility. Right click. - Berwyn Mike - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:14 pm: The comment above by “out of touch” regarding seed money to grow a big thing the public side is locked into is almost perfect. Public/private financing is doing the same thing as seemingly charters are. For instance, Peoples Gas and the accelerated main replacement issue seems very similar to seeding charters. A cost of $2 billion for new gas mains is big, but doable. Then the cost becomes $8 billion. People need gas so they’re stuck with a huge rate increase. People also need schools for their kids so a similar thing, if they can’t send little Buffy to Parker. Charters would only be truly a choice if residents could opt out of paying property taxes and sending their kids to school. Charters would only work as a libertarian alternative to public schools if there wasn’t a K through 10 requirement for kids. - Central_IL - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:15 pm: Or even better…middle click (scroll button). The link will automatically open in a new tab. - Buzzie - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:21 pm: Just as many anti-Quinn people voted for Rauner because they assumed he would be better, so, too, many anti-public education people believe charter schools are better. Have Rauner and charter schools done some good things? Yes. But they have also done some damage. Keep in mind, if charter schools are so good, then why aren’t there programs being copied by other public and private schools? And please don’t respond it is because the union blocks their implication—- the teachers will always use instructional strategies that will benefit their students—-and by extension, themselves. - Demoralized - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:26 pm: There are over 800 school districts in Illinois. I don’t think 48 charter schools are bringing down the public education system in Illinois. Secondly, the Illinois Charter Schools law must be followed. I didn’t see anything about usurping the requirements of that law. Third, if they took half a second to use the Google they could see the entire state application online and get all of the information on the program they want (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/charter/2015/illinoisapp.pdf). This outrage is ridiculous. If you are going to be a legislator at least pretend to act like an adult. Exclamations of “undemocratic” are asinine. - walker - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:28 pm: The legislature did set a cap on the number of charters, after much to and fro a few years ago. Whether that’s still in effect, and whether Rauner can just choose to ignore it at will, remains to be seen. Maybe he can argue that building them isn’t really having them? /s - CCP Hostage - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:31 pm: I met Rauner in the Capitol several years before he ran for governor. I was lobbying for CCP, he was lobbying for additional funding for charter schools. While comparing causes, the lobbyist next to me noted the excellent test scores of the charter school kids and inquired what happened to the kids who didn’t score as well. Mr. Rauner responded that the kids who don’t score well are returned to the public schools. - Robert the 1st - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:38 pm: Education reform is coming. Slowing but surely. Charter schools aren’t the silver bullet solution, just a means to rescue a few of the hostages (children and the working poor). The greed-crazed masters of the status-quo will fight change tooth and nail. - Ares - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 4:48 pm: The Catholic schools did fine for over a century w/o government subsidies. The charters can do the same. Want choice? - Pay for it. Let the charter schools, the Governor, and the Governor’s financial backers support their own ventures (and skim the cream of the students) out of their own funds. I don’t want my tax dollars subsidizing their charitable ventures. - Anon2U - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 5:02 pm: Do we call this group of legislators the ineffective caucus? - Georg Sande - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 5:06 pm: Yawn. This is a must miss. - Enviro - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 5:07 pm: There is a profit agenda in the move toward increasing the number of charter schools. Charter Schools are often nonprofit in name only. http://www.propublica.org/article/when-charter-schools-are-nonprofit-in-name-only - Wordslinger - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 5:16 pm: How does $42.5 million cover even start-up costs for 48 schools? - DuPage Saint - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 5:29 pm: Charter schools appear to be a scam. I will bet in 5 years it will make operation Greylord and the hired truck fiasco look like peanuts. Somewhere some one is smelling the meat a cookin - Sue - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 6:06 pm: Why is it Democrats both locally and nationally (i.e. Hillary Clinton) want to deprive students, usually minorities, from having a choice when it comes to education. It must have something to do with all the money the NEA and IFT pour into campaigns aimed at shuttering charters - Robert the 1st - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 6:17 pm: =Why is it Democrats both locally and nationally (i.e. Hillary Clinton) want to deprive students, usually minorities, from having a choice when it comes to education.= The best part is… the politicians, lobbyists, and even the majority of union teachers themselves refuse to send their children to the joke of public education they defend. - Wordslinger - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 6:18 pm: Sue, you never deviate from the cult-like mantra, no matter the evidence. is it your position that “local and national Democrats” such as Obama, Arne Carlson, Emanuel and Madigan have been down on charter schools? That’s bizarre. You realize this thread is about the Obama administration giving a grant for 48 charter schools, 24 in Chicago? - Illinoian - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 6:55 pm: If parents want to send their kids to charter schools great! Public funding of them not so great. We don’t fund other private schools that are religion based. This is for the most part not an upswell of the economic disadvantaged but of the economic elite that want a higher quality of education for their children without having to pay more for the perceived increase in quality. IMO either pay more or work to improve the public education system of their community. A good education should not be reserved for those of means that include only the capable. - out of touch - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 6:58 pm: Thanks to Wordslinger for helping Sue better understand. As for democrats wanting to “deprive students, usually minorities of choice”, I would simply say that the push for “choice” would be much less urgent if minority schools were fairly funded in the first place. - tbfurman - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 6:58 pm: The grant distributes money to people who want to propose charter schools. There are pre-planning grants, design grants, and implementation grants. None of these are designed to fund a charter school, but rather to design the proposal and planning of one. The taxpayers will pay the costs over the long haul, as previous commenters have pointed out. Almost no aspect of the grant that isn’t devoted to funding charter school proposals, so if Tony Smith did indeed cover this topic earlier, and he indicated something to the contrary, I’d like to see a reference to those comments, please. The budget narrative begins on p. e466. There’s $25,000 in the budget for something called a “survey of learning conditions” but the rest is basically money going toward the charter proposals, including staffing up ISBE to spend the money. So, the overwhelming majority of the grant award will go to people who want to plan a charter school, and who seek grant money to do so. Any other interpretation is misleading. - Enviro - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 7:16 pm: It is interesting to note that banks and equity funds that invest in charter schools can take profit from a generous tax credit. The credit allows them to double the money they invested in seven years. This could account for the interest that hedge funds have in charter school investments. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/04/why-hedge-funds-love-charter-schools/ - Mama - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 7:33 pm: State Supt Smith is big on charter schools. Therefore, this does not surprise me. I have a feeling Meeks is on board with this as well. - Mama - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 7:34 pm: Rich, will the charters be private or public schools? - Robert the 1st - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 7:41 pm: =It is interesting to note that banks and equity funds that invest in charter schools can take profit from a generous tax credit.= It’s interesting to note that connected lawyers and lobbyists have used IL public school to sub teach part-time for a signal day and cash in on life-time taxpayer backed pensions. Why do union teachers send their own children to private/non-union schools again? - out of touch - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 7:54 pm: Robert the 1st: One lobbyist took advantage of the sub teacher loophole that you described. He also paid in, in full, as a pensioner. Not a freebie. That law has since been changed. Your point is valid, but let’s not generalize so broadly. It not even the topic at hand. - Robert the 1st - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 8:00 pm: out of touch Please see that my comment was in response to another. And just as “on topic” as his or her’s. - Enviro - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 8:31 pm: Robert the 1st, It is very much on topic to discuss how banks and hedge funds can profit from investing in charter schools. Banks and equity funds may be less interested in helping low income students and more interested in helping high income investors. - Robert the 1st - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 8:35 pm: Quick lesson for government employees: A tax credit does not produce profit, nor equate to some sort of “handout/give-away.” - internal angel - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 9:07 pm: I have a friend whose relative works for CPS and hasnt received a paycheck since June. Another CPS teacher told her she had to lapse her car insurance bcause she couldnt pay it, yet still goes to school in that car. I dont understand what the backstory could be on these situations if the school approps are in effect and the mainstream media doesnt cover whats going on, but something is. Could it be inflaming the CPS situation, i think so. Pay attention to outrage, theres always alot more to it. They assume you know and you may not even be aware. They are told its coming from the capitol as the reason, it may not be. Dont know. But shouldnt somebody be finding out? - CPS Teacher - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 9:21 pm: 1. I send my 3 kids to a CPS school. 2. I’ve seen many students pushed out of charters because of behavior problems. They end up in my school. 3. I’ve seen kids with special ed needs pushed out of charters. They end up in my school. 4. The CPS budget chaos year after year hurts our students. This is the fault of CPS which has been completely run by our mayors for decades, as well as the games Springfield plays. Our students are not pawns to be used for political gain. - Anonymous - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 9:27 pm: @ Robert the 1st Quit tolling already, I am sorry, let me rephrase that. Wanting attention because you don’t get enough as it is. Read the state constitution for once. It specifically states funding for public schools. - Robert the 1st - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 9:46 pm: “Anonymous” You showed me. Well done. You represent all state workers. - olddog - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 9:50 pm: @ Mama 7:34 pm === Rich, will the charters be private or public schools? === Depends on who you talk to. They’re best described as a hybrid — they say they’re public, and they’re financed with public appropriations. But all too often they operate like private schools feeding at the public trough. Here’s a link to an informative article by Diane Ravitch, who is a public school advocate but cites solid, verifiable factual evidence in answer to your question: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2012/05/are_charter_schools_public_sch.html - Anonymous - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 9:57 pm: @ Robert the 1st No I don’t. I pay taxes, own a house, work in this state as a business owner, and respect individuals unlike you. You are the part of the problem not the solution. I am sorry I won’t bash state workers. Please realize there is help out there for narcissism. - Truthines - Thursday, Nov 19, 15 @ 11:13 pm: ==But the grant only covers start-up funding, with no funds to run schools once they open, thus cannibalizing the same inadequate public dollars funding existing schools.== But since every student attending a charter school is one less student attending one of the existing public schools, the existing schools will need less money, right? As with so many matters, the issues are more complex and subtle than the advocates on either side will admit, which wouldn’t be so bad if the media would do more than parrot the talking heads. Yea, but the charter school is going to need a fat profit and an business-oriented educational agenda. Our Masters must be proud! - internal angel - Friday, Nov 20, 15 @ 5:48 am: Quick lesson for Robert the 1st: tax credits reduce state revenues and help to increase tax rates overall. - internal angel - Friday, Nov 20, 15 @ 6:17 am: Im positive that state employees at Revenue can creat a Gentax report showing the total state revenue foregone by via tax credits. - Shark Sandwich - Friday, Nov 20, 15 @ 6:29 am: “But since every student attending a charter school is one less student attending one of the existing public schools, the existing schools will need less money, right?” I am curious why people think this. It would only be true for costs driven on a per student basis, like a software license for each child or a school lunch. But is a charter school going to draw enough kids away to drop even one teacher? ‘Per classroom’ costs will be the same. Smartboards are $2500, makes no difference if there are 12 kids or 30 in the classroom. 50 kids to a charter from a k-4 school is 10 kids per grade, probably not enough to cut a teacher or drop a bus. - wordslinger - Friday, Nov 20, 15 @ 7:49 am: Robert, please expand on your “quick lesson” on tax credits. It’s quite a novel theory. See, I thought, for example, if I have a $2,000 tax liability and a $1,000 tax credit, my tax liability is reduced by $1,000 and I get to keep it in the form of real folding money. In fact, if I have a $5,000 tax liability, but $10,000 in tax credits, the government will give me $5,000 — that’s 50 real Hondos — and I’ll pay no taxes at all. Consider that a quick lesson from one private sector schmuck to another, Robert. The money boys figured out new ways in recent decades to tap into the taxpayer financed cash cow of K-12. Charters and credits are part of it, but the worst scam is the endless, mindless series of tests inflicted on children in the name of “reform.” They have nothing to do with education, but they’re a huge score for the publishers at the taxpayer trough. Diane Ravitch, a former Bush administration official, is doing the best work on the boondoggles. Use the google to find her account of a conversation she had with Bruce Rauner and his thoughts on education. Quite revealing. - C.L. Ball - Friday, Nov 20, 15 @ 8:41 am: Once the grant $ is on the table, expect that there will be a push to amend the charter law to allow for more schools. Also, charters can be close and a new charter started using these funds. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.