Creating losers with the same old formula
Wednesday, Apr 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
This spring, with prospects for an end to the stalemate dim, education spending is in the cross hairs as Rauner and Democrats fight over the future of school funding. The governor has called on Democrats to send him a bill that would spend an extra $55 million and ensure the next school year isn’t disrupted should the stalemate drag on. Democrats say the governor’s plan only throws more money at an inequitable system that props up wealthy districts to the detriment of poorer ones and suggest now is the time to overhaul the entire school aid funding formula. […]
“They’re trying to create a crisis so our public schools don’t open, to force a tax hike,” Rauner said. “Believe me, it’s hand-to-hand combat every day. It’s really hard to run a government without a budget. Really hard.” […]
Rauner’s approach took the form of the carrot, as he dangled out a list detailing how dollars would be doled out to school districts across the state under his plan to beef up K-12 spending by $55 million this year. It’s a time-tested tactic aimed at building support within districts that would benefit from the plan, designed to put pressure on suburban Democrats whose schools stand to take home more dollars.
Madigan employed the stick, introducing a constitutional amendment to make public education in Illinois a “fundamental right,” creating the potential for the state to be sued if it doesn’t come up with the majority of money to finance public schools. It’s a signal that Democrats aren’t backing down from their larger plan to rewrite the state’s school aid formula following years of complaints that districts with a lesser ability to raise money from property taxes are falling farther behind property tax-rich districts.
I have my doubts that Madigan is gonna be on board with Sen. Manar’s plan because of his suburban Democratic targets mentioned above. So I’m not so sure that last part is actually being signaled here.
To me, Madigan’s plan looks more like Madigan’s response to Manar than anything else. And as some folks mentioned in comments yesterday, this state has belatedly discovered via pension reform that mandating spending in the Constitution can have extremely expensive consequences. So, I’d probably take Manar’s plan over Madigan’s if forced to choose between just those two. And I think the current funding formula is just crazily flawed.
* From Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery…
“For the first time in several years, the General Assembly is having a meaningful conversation about school funding, but Governor Rauner’s proposal only distracts from that serious debate. Let’s be clear: the Governor has not put forth a real education funding reform plan. He merely suggested putting slightly more money into the same broken formula without addressing the core need for fairness or adequacy. His proposal further demonstrates the flaws of the current system where students in dire need would face more cuts if nothing changes.
“We’d be foolish to think this is a silver bullet, especially coming from a Governor who is presiding over an epic collapse of social services and higher education because he refuses to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share. The same schools Rauner claims he wants to help are the center of the communities he is hurting. With limited resources, teachers and school staff are doing their best to educate students whose families are losing the support they need today and the college educations they want tomorrow.”
The key phrase for me here is “putting slightly more money into the same broken formula.” Yep.
* Check out the top ten losers in the governor’s plan…
There are some pretty hard-hit schools on that list.
* And check out who “won”…
- Robert the Bruce - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 10:22 am:
Winnetka +6.5%!
Who said we can’t afford to be compassionate?
- Simple Mind - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 10:27 am:
Isn’t the reason that Chicago gets less under the old formula that there are few students in attendance than last year? Aren’t the winners those districts with more students than last year?
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 10:28 am:
Simple, it’s not that, um, simple. That’s part of it, but there’s far more to that convoluted, complicated formula than mere head count.
- Chicago Cynic - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 10:36 am:
It is simply unfathomable that he is making a proposal that so clearly and explicitly benefits the wealthiest districts at the expense of the poor. My district benefits under this proposal and I could not oppose it any more strongly.
BTW, maybe this is why Rauner went to a school in Wilmette a couple weeks ago, right before the CPS 1 day strike.
Amazing.
- Honeybear - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 10:38 am:
My God this is so horrific. East St. Louis, Cahokia losing money? You might as well just urinate on these children. That’s I’m sure what they are feeling right now. Just formally throw them away. Seriously. It’s the end result of this. Just have the stones to look them in the eye as you destroy the dreams of young lives.
- JS Mill - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 10:39 am:
= That’s part of it, but there’s far more to that convoluted, complicated formula than mere head count.=
ADA or Average Daily Attendance is a major driving force within the formula, but for CPS the funding formula impacts them differently than the rest since they receive what is referred to as the Chicago Block Grant and a huge chuck of the PTELL adjustment before the rest of it is trickled out to the other schools that are under PTELL.
ADA is based on a three year average and CPS ADA is not good. It does impact them just not the way it impacts the rest of us.
And, Rich like many others talks about poor districts and high poverty districts. The way Illinois funds poverty is impacting the available funding overall, the poverty grant drives almost as much funding as the rest of the GSA formula. High poverty districts with low EAV and/or low tax rates are generally well funded. Berwyn taking a hit in the chart above, still leaves them in an annual surplus. Those also have to stop.
- Michelle Flaherty - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 11:00 am:
When your three biggest losers are Chicago, Naperville and East St. Louis, something is seriously wrong with the status quo formula.
- Ducky LaMoore - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 11:00 am:
My local school district would lose 14% under these “reforms”. Now all the locals that blindly support him will start using their brains. Nah, probably not….
- illini - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 11:12 am:
Three of the districts are in the Metro East. Over $2 Million that will not go to help those student who need it the most. So what else is new?
- A guy - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 11:19 am:
This is how an ugly, flawed, band-aid driven system winds up. It’s been heading this way for years. Now the population changes are helping expose more inequity. There’s no fixing this. Heck, it’s not even in a position to repair all of the previously flawed repairs. There’s only one very painful answer.
- 47th Ward - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 11:38 am:
===There’s no fixing this.===
Senator Manar disagrees.
- JS Mill - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 11:40 am:
@ A guy-
Actually, the formula can work fairly well if the poverty component is puled out and dealt with separately. Instead, the poverty component is over taking the formula.
The politicians love to attack the formula, and I have issues with aspects of it. The real problem is the under funding of the formula and MCATS. It worked pretty well and there weren’t many complaints until the foundation went flat (stuck at $6,119 since 2009) and they started cutting the funding by 5-10% (politician spin “proration”)and that is when the real complaining started.
- A guy - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 11:53 am:
===Senator Manar disagrees.===
Yes he does. And he’s on his third dart.
JSM, there are certainly elements of the formula that could be the foundation for a new formula. We’d probably agree on more than we’d disagree with. The idea that we even talk about changing or coming up with a new “formula” is probably a wrongful step. We should be looking at an equation. One that doesn’t shift local property taxes around. If that includes some added state revenue, that’s part of an equation. There’s a better way.
- 47th Ward - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 12:12 pm:
===There’s a better way.===
Wait, which is it? Is it unfixable or is there a better way?
- Carhartt Representative - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 12:22 pm:
It’s about time the students in New Trier got a break. If CPS is so much worse, why did Rauner send his daughter to CPS to avoid the Winnetka Public Schools?
- Sense of a Goose - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 12:41 pm:
A bad formula isn’t so bad when you throw more money in it every year. Thought our Governor wasn’t going to do that anymore. He says he’s not going to do things the same old way. When you want to stop throwing money at a problem and drill down to fix it, you have to have an attention span long enough to do so. I’m sure Madigan drives him to distraction so he can’t (nor can the superstars) concentrate that hard. Because Madigan
- winners and losers - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 12:57 pm:
Witness slips are coming in for SFA 1 to SB 231 for the 1:30 PM hearing today before Senate Exec.
Organized campaign has produced over 400 PRO with over 50 coming from one school district.
Looks like opposition mainly from special education, although IEA is also opposed.
- Former Hoosier - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 1:22 pm:
Winners and losers indeed.
It is absolutely ludicrous that my elementary district (Winnetka Public Schools) stands to gain $22,000/year under the Gov’s proposed funding plan. At the same time, my high school district (New Trier) will gain $50,000/year. My local schools are some of the best funded and most highly rated schools in the country. They do not need additional state funding.
My local schools have a poverty rate of only 3%. As a whole, the Chicago Public Schools have a poverty rate of 85%. Other school districts have equally high poverty rates. Those communities rely almost entirely on state funding for their schools. They are the ones who need additional funding- not Winnetka and New Trier- who rely on high property taxes to fund 95% of their budget (and spend $20,000/pupil).
- logic not emotion - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 3:21 pm:
Many years ago, a Chicago area Senator sponsored some legislation that would have shifted significant amounts of money from some of the poorest areas of the state to some of the richest. The Committee Chair pushed that legislation right through committee despite vocal protests from those affected. It was simply a case of those with power and money trying to capture more of it from those without. Both of those Senators were Democrats. Fortunately, it never became law and the savior who stopped it was a Democrat. Neither party can claim to be the “good guys”.
- anon - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 3:59 pm:
Rauner insists that Manar’s reform plan be rejected because it creates losers. Yet Rauner’s plan also creates losers. The difference is who loses. It’s mainly poor districts under Rauner, and rich districts under Manar. In short, a no-brainer for the GOP.
- illini - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 4:31 pm:
Former Hoosier - great comment that puts this conundrum into the proper perspective. Winners and Losers exactly!
- NoGifts - Thursday, Apr 14, 16 @ 6:11 am:
I still don’t understand why this is an emergency, and why it can’t wait until next fiscal year - when our budgeting process is under control again. Maybe it has taken a lot of thought, but it seems rushed to me.
- winners and losers - Thursday, Apr 14, 16 @ 7:57 am:
Why the emergency? That is the only way Manar/Cullerton have any chance of passing this bill.
Create a crisis, say NO budget for PK-12 will pass until AFTER the school funding formulas are changed, and that any money put into the current formulas is
- winners and losers - Thursday, Apr 14, 16 @ 8:04 am:
(continued)A WASTE OF MONEY.
Then rush to passage so no one reads the 490 page bill too closely, or raises too many questions, or demands that the sponsor provide proof that the proposal will actually improve education in Illinois.
Just say things are bad and that this new proposal will change everything.
We have no tradition of requiring proof that the new is better than the old.
Who really understands the new proposal? If you listened to the hearing yesterday, Manar does not.