66 Comments - wordslinger - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:04 am: There goes the Catholic League football and basketball coach vote. –“He vetoed initial versions in order to negotiate a better final product — which he successfully accomplished by creating the tuition scholarship tax credit program to benefit low-income students,” [Rauner campaign] spokesman Will Allison said in an email.– LOL, That’s one way of looking at it. Demented and sad, but one way. In reality, the small-potatoes program came from nowhere as a face-saving out for Rauner because he and BTIA(TM) had no clue as to what they were doing with the amendatory veto and jeopardized schools opening on time. The footage of Rauner’s deer-in-the-headlights, flop-sweat press conference where reporters schooled him on the consequences of his actions remains a classic. “Simple majority…..simple majority….” - Retired Educator - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:07 am: The Constitution guarantees a free and appropriate public education. If a person wants their child in a private school, they pay for it. I see the voucher system as an unneeded expense. - How about this one? - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:07 am: Politics aside, this scholarship program helps many low-income families. If you want to find more money for CPS, Peel back the layers of bloat at central office. How do I know, you ask…? - Arsenal - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:17 am: ==How do I know, you ask…?== We didn’t. - People Over Parties - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:18 am: I would question how much political appeasement has do do with this position. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:19 am: I guess that’s one way to get Cardinal Cupich to lay off Rauner, even after Rauner misled Cardinal Cupich and sighed HB40. Also… For the 652nd time… School funding, property taxes, vouchers, “any and every”… Rauner clouted his denied Winnetka-living daughter over a worthy Chicago child. You want the discussion to be about “equity” or “fairness” or Rauner choosing “winners and losers” in schools and options… and local control and funding thru high property taxes… … Rauner is a hypocrite, who, when no one was looking, gamed a system for his own personal gain. Rauner cares about students. His own students, but… Making this about the funding and where Rauner is failing the public schools and helping special interest private schools is missing an easy framing to tie loose ends. - How about this one? - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:19 am: ==We didn’t.== Afraid of what you’ll discover. Thought so. Carry on. - Union Thug Gramma - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:21 am: All we have to do is look to our east and see what a voucher program does for “poor” children…their public school is decimated and the richer kids are the majority who receive vouchers…and in the charter schools that cater to “poor” children(aka minority), there is little to NO difference in grades, in fact some get worse. - City Zen - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:24 am: This will recoup 1% of the total education funding. #problemsolved - Arsenal - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:24 am: ==Afraid of what you’ll discover.== Don’t worry about my feelings. Say what you know. So far, you’re saying nothing, which leads me to conclude… - A Jack - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:27 am: I think these tax credits should be suspended at least until the state pays off the Rauner debt. - A guy - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:31 am: JB should be a little careful how many small (or maybe not so small) blocs he’s willing to part with early. Graduated tax plan will cost him the suburbs. This move might be viewed as Anti-Catholic. It’s more than coaches who will think so. Those are folks in his natural base he’s kissing good bye to. Rauner is no prize to be sure, but if he stays out of the way of JB, he’ll have enough disgruntled voters handed to him. This is a stupid, stupid move on JB’s part. The public schools got more than a full sandwich on that bill. This has no potential to help him and plenty to harm him. E-1 if you’re scoring at home. Hard to believe we have 2 completely inept campaigners to choose from. Ugh. - Chicago - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:32 am: Hopefully J.B. will eventually listen to the families (many of whom are Hispanic and African Americans) who will benefit from this program. - RNUG - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:34 am: I’m going to go with my parents opinion on this one. They sent all their kids to Catholic schools and had strong feelings about paying property taxes and tuition. Yes, it was their choice but they still felt it was unfair. When it comes to school vouchers, I think it should be an all or nothing approach. If you are going to have vouchers, it should be universal. Eliminate all per student related payment that goes directly to schools and give every kid a voucher that can be spent at the school of their (parents) choice, public or private. The first few years may be ugly, but it should force the underperforming schools to up their game. And if you aren’t going to do a 100% voucher system, then there should be zero vouchers. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:34 am: – How do I know, you ask…?– You could just make your case. The suspense is unbearable. - OneMan - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:35 am: Can he just kill this on his own or would he need legislative approval? - Telly - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:38 am: == There goes the Catholic League football and basketball coach vote. == Really well played, word. I’m kind of agnostic on the scholarship/voucher program. It had to be thrown into the mix to help save the governor from himself. Though, it would have been nice if at least a subject matter hearing was held on the concept before it became law. - blue dog dem - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:39 am: Dumb move #1 and counting. - TinyDancer(FKASue) - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:45 am: Offering “choice” is a Libertarian strategy to defund, destroy, and privatize public institutions. They started with schools and now they’re working on the V.A. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” - Arsenal - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:46 am: ==Dumb move #1 and counting.== Oh please, this is hardly his first dumb move. And I’m not even sure it’s that dumb. There’s a big enthusiasm gap on this issue. the Antis are real fired up about it, while the pros are pretty passive. - Downstate - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:49 am: Psst…… School choice is not about choosing different teachers. School choice is about choosing a better educational environment. Responsible parents want their children in classroom occupied by children of other responsible parents. I’m in our educational system every week. Students of irresponsible parents send their child to school without any regard for authority, rules or self-discipline. At the same time, responsible parents, across the spectrum of economic background, are seeking an environment where their children can learn. Without school choice, levels of learning are too often dictated by the least responsible parent. - DuPage - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:49 am: @- How about this one? - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:07 am: ===Politics aside, this scholarship program helps many low-income families. If you want to find more money for CPS, Peel back the layers of bloat at central office. How do I know, you ask…?=== OK, EXACTLY how do you know? - 44th - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:53 am: What is a Neo-confederate? that is a new one to me. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:57 am: –When it comes to school vouchers, I think it should be an all or nothing approach. If you are going to have vouchers, it should be universal. Eliminate all per student related payment that goes directly to schools and give every kid a voucher that can be spent at the school of their (parents) choice, public or private.– I think they just called up the PTA militias at New Trier, Stevenson, Hinsdale Central….. Heck the parents at Hinsdale Central don’t want the kids from Hinsdale South going to their school. You think they’re going to take travelers from out-of-district? - Last Bull Moose - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:57 am: I second RNUG on this. My problem with public school monopolies is the monopoly part. Monopolies tend to slow innovation and provide poor service to their captive customers. - RNUG - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:03 am: == I think they just called up the PTA militias at New Trier, Stevenson, Hinsdale Central….. == As long as it isn’t nuns with rulers. We might have to pass a ban on assault rulers … - A guy - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:17 am: ==As long as it isn’t nuns with rulers.== It’s very difficult to find either one of these in a school today. - Skeptic - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:25 am: “As long as it isn’t nuns with rulers” You’d ban The Penguin? What about the Jakes and Elwoods of the world? - capitol view - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:27 am: A neo-confederate? Sounds like a cleaned up way of saying an anti-black bigot. - TinyDancer(FKASue) - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:30 am: ==Monopolies tend to slow innovation and provide poor service to their captive customers.== Albert Shanker attempted to address that problem, but his solution has been hijacked by the small government folks. Albert Shanker’s original charter school concept was to improve public schools by creating charter schools that would be incubators of educational innovation - free of bureaucratic constraints which would empower teachers to be creative and transfer successful methods to public schools. Charters were intended to improve public schools - not replace them. - Dance Band on the Titanic - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:34 am: Not sure how taking away a significant chunk of revenue will allow “the underperforming schools to up their game”. One of the primary reasons they are underperforming in the first place is these schools lack the resources necessary to help their students overcome the structural disadvantages they face on a daily basis. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:42 am: –What is a Neo-confederate? that is a new one to me.– They’ve been around in one form or another since April 10, 1865. If someone will give you directions to your local library, you can get a card for free. - Jocko - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:43 am: ==School choice is about choosing a better educational environment.== It’s just coincidence that the environment is demographically homogeneous and free from struggling learners. - JS Mill - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 11:47 am: = Without school choice,= Everyone has school choice. You can move. That may not be cost effective, but no one said it had to. @RNUG- If I were to support any voucher approach (I am not, but if) it would be all or nothing. Word was right though, some districts employ people to investigate residency issues. The New Trier’s of the world do not want CPS kids filling up their classrooms. Sad but true. - SuburbanRepublican - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:01 pm: Let’s remember that under the education funding reform that was passed last year, a permanent hold harmless was done for every school district in Illinois. So this tax credit program is not taking a single penny from any school. This is simply allowing poor families that ability to apply for a scholarship to send their child someplace else. Public schools aren’t losing dollars here, even if their student population drops. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:02 pm: –Word was right though, some districts employ people to investigate residency issues.– The last few years I had a kid at Oak Park-River Forest, you had to show up in person with mortgage/tax bill/lease documentation, utility bills, and picture ID. It would all get copied at one station, then you sat down for a chin-wag with an off-duty Oak Park detective who looked it all over. Mind you, this is my third kid, they’d all gone to Oak Park schools only, and I’d been in the same house for 25 years. So yeah, some schools don’t want out-of-district kids. Unless they can ball. Believe me, that happens in public schools, too. - City Zen - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:22 pm: ==When it comes to school vouchers, I think it should be an all or nothing approach.== Same with taxing income. All or nothing. - City Zen - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:28 pm: ==Albert Shanker attempted to address that problem, but his solution has been hijacked by the small government folks.== Shanker’s union failed miserably at running their own charter in NYC. Who’s hijacking whom? - JS Mill - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:34 pm: @suburban republican- I don’t believe that is accurate- the hold harmless was only for a couple of years. Then all bets are off. - Rosa - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:42 pm: Surprised at this quote regarding looking east: “their public school is decimated and the richer kids are the majority who receive vouchers. . .” This is not possible with the Illinois program. Do some research–check the income eligibility chart and the list of districts that are eligible based on general income levels. You have to have both financial need and be from an eligible district. While not a perfect bill, it is providing a great deal of hope for some of the lowest income families in our west side neighborhood. - TinyDancer(FKASue) - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 12:50 pm: =Shanker’s union failed miserably at running their own charter in NYC. Who’s hijacking whom?= Today’s charters are more like selective enrollment schools than what was originally envisioned. Shanker proposed that new charters should target the hardest-to-educate students: those who had dropped out or were failing. He never imagined that charters would have a selection process or that charters might avoid students with disabilities or English-language learners as is now the case in many charters. - How about this one? - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 1:04 pm: Thanks. Take a look at starting salaries of Chief’s and assistant chiefs in all departments and cross-reference those against Peers’ in private sector. Now, cross-matrix that with employment experience prior to joining CPS. Still following? Good. FOIA the expenditures for conferences and out of town “training” and relish in the fact that you have now uncovered enough dough to fund special Ed teachers or librarians for 10 schools. Also, examine the community outreach and communications contracts and their efficacy. Woah! You now have enough to implement more STEM opportunities throughout the district. Etc, etc. Some of us have actually seen these things. We just don’t hang out anonymously behind our keyboards. Also, politics aside. - City Zen - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 1:04 pm: ==or that charters might avoid students with disabilities or English-language learners as is now the case in many charters.== Which is exactly what Shanker’s failed United Federation of Teachers’ charter did. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 1:09 pm: ===We just don’t hang out anonymously behind our keyboards.=== Says the goofball posting with a pseudonym. - the Patriot - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 1:11 pm: Politically a bad idea. Private school folks are politically active and can sway votes. Practically, losing upper tier students to private schools hurts public schools because their scores drop when their best students get syphoned off. If it is about poor students getting a good education why don’t theses schools just give scholarships to poor kids. Prohibit kids that use vouchers from playing sports and you will see how much the schools care about the socio-economic opportunity. You don’t have to look farther than the IHSA football playoffs to figure this out. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 1:26 pm: –This move might be viewed as Anti-Catholic.– No hesitation to go there. How many Catholics are participating in this program? The archdiocese of Chicago has 76,000 students enrolled in their schools. I’m guessing there’s a few more Catholic students enrolled in public schools in Illinois. - dbk - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 1:28 pm: Late to the thread, sorry. Previous comments have jumbled together wealthy public school districts which try to ensure no out-of-district students can enroll, charter schools (i.e., public schools which are privately operated, either for-profit or not-for-profit depending on the charter granted), and voucher schools. This program is only for the third of these, and will be applicable only for “scholarships” to private schools, period - so no publics or charters are involved directly. In Illinois, “voucher schools” pretty much = Catholic schools. And “Catholic schools” pretty much = “Chicago Catholic schools,” whose enrollment has plummeted over the past decade or so. We shouldn’t imagine that recipients will be attending selective/exclusive private institutions, whose tuition is far more than the approx. $13,000 or so that will be the max allotted. They will attend Catholic schools and a much smaller number of private Christian schools. The path to educational equity in Illinois was shown by SB 1947. Until its passage, Illinois’s state funding of its schools was the most inequitable in the country. Pritzker’s stance is not a backward-looking one; rather, it’s in line with the most up-to-date and informed education research nationwide. Of course, if one doesn’t believe that public schools should even exist (the stance of the U.S. Sec of Ed), that’s a different issue. - Cheryl44 - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 2:43 pm: Wow dbk, you just saved me a whole lot of typing. I could walk to my public k-8 school, where I learned (some) Latin, the Dewey Decimal System, square dancing and the 3Rs. That’s pretty much what I want every kid everywhere to be able to do. I don’t know why this is so hard anymore. - Rosa - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 3:16 pm: To the Patriot–”Why don’t these schools just give scholarships to poor kids?” Do you think we don’t already do that? But that money comes from tirelessly seeking donations and asking our teachers to work for significantly less than their public school peers. We can’t raise enough to meet the needs of all the low-income families seeking a stronger educational environment for their children. One person responded that they should just move, but that is a pretty simplistic statement that doesn’t take into account the systemic barriers faced by many families. Re: the comment on syphoning off top students, my experience with urban Christian schools over the past thirty years is that we enroll students with a wide range of academic needs each year and don’t cherry pick. I’m surprised by comments that assume that the schools are homogenous and have no struggling learners. That’s not the case for most of the urban schools I know. - Last Bull Moose - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 3:32 pm: We have made schools harder. Consider these changes 1. Mainstreaming special ed students. Add an autistic child to the classroom, two with ADD, and one with Down’s syndrome. These children were not in regular classes when I was in school. It makes teaching more difficult. 2. Give women the options to be engineers and lawyers. Then wonder why teachers seemed smarter when that was all women could do. 3. Lose consensus on what should be taught in History, Civics, and Social Studies. Create alternative courses and wonder why we lack a common core of knowledge. 4. Have an explosion of knowledge in the sciences and try to sort out which things students should know. 5. Have more families headed by single parents and watch home support drop. (Not knocking single parents. Just saying it is hard. ) 6. Add more rules , regulations, and layers of management and support. Then see efforts go to compliance before effectiveness. Life was simpler when schools were smaller and marginal people and views were excluded. In some ways today is better. In others it is worse. And the changes that help one student may hurt another. - Sue - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 5:32 pm: What a shock- Guess the IEA and IFT must have moved in to the campaign offices - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 7:03 pm: The great thing about living to a ripe old age is you realize that we actually are doomed to repeat ourselves. I am not foolish enough to believe that these funds are going to be used to open the flood gates for poor, minority students from Chicago to attend private schools. Parents currently sending their kids to private schools and struggling to pay their tuition are not gonna be happy with paying full boat while a bunch of other kids — particularly black and brown kids — come to school for free. Chicago ain’t Boston, but it isn’t Sesame Street either. Remember: there is no requirement in the bill that all the money or even a portion of the money be used for full scholarships. I expect the majority of scholarships will actually be partial tuition scholarships. Secondly, you can bet the archdiocese and a few others will use these funds to quietly subsidize a tuition hike. After all, what parent can really object to a $500 tuition hike when the school is handing out $1000 scholarships? Third: the abuses of this scholarship program will make the abuses of the General Assembly scholarship program look tiny by comparison. Atleast with the GA program, names of scholarship winners were public, and reporters could connect the dots. Nothing about this program will be subject to rigorous FOIA. Fourth: polling is on Pritzker’s side. the public hates “vouchers”, they hate “privatization” of public education, and they especially hate anything that diverts money from their neighborhood schools to private schools. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 7:14 pm: @RNUG: Here is an idea: why doesnt the Catholic church just make education at all of its schools free? If the church would just stop charging tuition, and ask everyone to donate to the best of their ability, that ought to fix everything. - RNUG - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:34 pm: -Yellow Dog- They kind of did that at one point, just collecting the tuition as (tax deductible?) “voluntry contributions” from the parents to the parish. The IRS was not amused and came down on the practice. I suspect they wouldn’t like your suggestion either. - RNUG - Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 10:42 pm: == That’s not the case for most of the urban schools I know. == -Rosa-, I can tell from personal experience that the Catholic schools do cherry pick, and discourage any special needs students from attending. My high school ran my son out. I knew the right people to clout him back in, but choose not to do so. And, as a former alumni who used to contribute, they haven’t received a single dollar from me since then. - TinyDancer(FKASue) - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 12:38 am: ==Which is exactly what Shanker’s failed United Federation of Teachers’ charter did.== @City Zen Link, please. - I'm helping - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 7:53 am: –Link, please.– “UFT charter meted out corporal punishment to 4.4 percent of special ed students. Given that special ed kids accounted for just nine percent of UFT Charter’s students (which, by the way, is lower than the 13.1 percent average for Big Apple charters and 16.5 percent for the traditional district), the damage meted out by the school and the union to the special ed kids who were enrolled in its schools is just plain inexcusable.” http://dropoutnation.net/2015/03/04/afts-charter-school-hypocrisy/ - City Zen - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 8:28 am: ==Link, please.== http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/errol-louis-uft-charter-school-flunked-article-1.2134925 https://nypost.com/2015/02/27/state-forces-brooklyn-charter-school-to-close-its-doors/ - A State Employee Guy - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 9:31 am: =There goes the Catholic League football and basketball coach vote.= is kind of an awful thing to say. Vouchers are awful and bad, unless you have a kid stuck in a failing school. N/A to commenters here. - wordslinger - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 9:36 am: –Vouchers are awful and bad, unless you have a kid stuck in a failing school. – You have information on who’s receiving these tax credits and the students who are benefiting from them? Please share. - wordslinger - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 9:39 am: I’d add, SEG, that athletic boosters at parochial schools have been covering the costs via “scholarships” for some exceptional athletes for quite some time. No secret. - A State Employee Guy - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 10:11 am: 1) If you think telling me that schools providing scholarships somehow absolves you from saying “har har coaches pluck poor black kids to play sports har”, then I just don’t know where to start with you. 2) Data from Indiana’s system—one of the largest choice systems in the nation, if not the largest, as a % of the state’s students as a whole—show mixed results initially for voucher kids, but suggest that the longer voucher kids stay in private schools, the better. The program is for low and moderate income families; 90% coverage for low income families, more than half of whom were kids of color. - wordslinger - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 10:25 am: –1) If you think telling me that schools providing scholarships somehow absolves you from saying “har har coaches pluck poor black kids to play sports har”– I don’t believe I require absolution (and certainly not from you) for something I didn’t write. (Perhaps you missed those years in school when they explained quotation marks). What’s your usual penance for bearing false witness against your neighbor? - A State Employee Guy - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 10:29 am: I pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that he may provide me with the strength and courage to deal with people who are Dumb Online. - wordslinger - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 10:42 am: –I pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that he may provide me with the strength and courage to deal with people who are Dumb Online.– I’m sure you need all the help you can get. Now go and sin no more. - TinyDancer(FKASue) - Thursday, Apr 5, 18 @ 11:46 am: @City Zen Sigh Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.