* Bears…
Q: And what are those [Bears] conversations looking like? Are they happening with your staff, with lead leaders, or are the Bears kind of putting together a proposal?
Pritzker: They’ve asked for advice, and so our staff, as well as legislators, have offered them that. I think they’re looking at both of the bills that passed, the one in the House, the one in the Senate, hoping to put the the provisions of each of those together in a form that they think will pass. And then, of course, they need to begin conversations with members of the legislature that they weren’t able to win over before, and again, we’ve been advising and trying to help out wherever we could.
Q: Is there any sense of urgency to all this?
Pritzker: Of course, of course. Are you kidding? We want to get it done as soon as possible, and if they’re able to put everything together as we hope they will, you know, I’m, as I’ve said, I’m willing to call a special session, so that we can get a vote on it long before the veto session, if that’s possible. And so we’re, we’re working and helping them in every way we can.
Please pardon any transcription errors.
* School funding…
Q: Do you have any sense of whether, anything, any kind of special session? CTU is holding a rally tonight calling on special session to truly fund schools.
Pritzker: Yeah, I agree with everyone who says that schools are not as well funded as they should be. Indeed, every year I have increased funding for our K-12 education. It’s almost $3 billion in total, in addition to the EBF, the base increase in funding. I’ve added on top of that things like the teacher vacancy program, which helps schools in the toughest districts hire teachers that they’ve had a harder time hiring. We now have, I think, more teachers employed in the state of Illinois than we’ve ever had before, and we now rank in the top 10 among 50 states for our K-12 education, pre-K to 12. So I’m proud of the direction things have gone, but I couldn’t agree more that we need more funding for our public schools. That’s why I’m continuing every year, even with tough budgets, even with Donald Trump attacking education and attacking state budgets. We have found enough money to increase funding for public schools.
[Cross-talk]
If there’s an opportunity for us to improve funding for schools, and there’s somebody who’s come up with an idea about how you might get it done. Remember, an amendment to the Constitution does not require the governor; it actually requires a super majority of the House and the Senate to pass it. And so, I, as you know, I’ve been in favor of a more graduated income tax system, and I’ll continue to be in favor of that, but it’s something that the legislature needs to take up.
* IFT…
President Davis Gates last week also called on Gov. Pritzker to convene a special session of the General Assembly to address our state’s public education funding crisis and raise revenue from the ultra-wealthy to help close the $6.4 billion funding gap facing Illinois public schools from pre-K to Ph.D.
If Gov. Pritzker can call a special session to discuss data centers and a stadium proposal for billionaires, he can surely call one to address the educational needs of Illinois students.
He hasn’t talked about a data center special session.
- Rahm's Parking Meter - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 1:44 pm:
When this is over - I want the Politico rundown of what people think of Kevin Warren.
- Thomas Paine - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 2:02 pm:
Virginia just enacted a $600 million per year tax on data center energy consumption.
I’m new here, but maybe Illinois could impose a tax of data center energy consumption of its own and use that to boost school funding.
Seems like common sense.
And since data centers rely heavily on educated workforce, a tax dedicated to education seems like something they should strongly support.
https://virginiamercury.com/2026/06/22/virginia-legislators-advance-205-billion-budget-including-new-tax-on-data-centers/
- Thomas Paine - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 2:03 pm:
Two birds with one stone, as they say.
- TNR - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 2:08 pm:
With no real news to report, the Chicago media has turned to cheerleading for special sessions — apparently for just about everything. Ah, summertime.
- ChicagoBars - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 2:42 pm:
It has been almost a decade since we’ve gotten to enjoy a “Committee of the Whole” in mid-summer down Springfield way…
Time to bring that Madigan v Rauner tradition back? I kid. I kid.
- Lisa - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 2:50 pm:
What irritates me about the whole data center debate is that in any sensible economy, utility companies would simply increase capacity to match demand, and increase their profits accordingly.
The fact that this doesn’t happen here is simply evidence that our regulation of electricity generation and supply has been bad for the state.
As to the so-called “funding gap” for education, this is not the scientific assessment everyone claims it to be. Every step of the way, the “experts” are making assumptions and there’s a fundamental level of arbitrariness to their calculations. The “EBF” supporters are pushing for, for public universities, is based on a fundamental premise that everyone who wants to, should go to a four-year university and deserves as much tutoring as they need to succeed. Everyone likes to point to European colleges without acknowledging those students have to pass the equivalent of rigorous admission tests and, as far as tutoring or other support services go, they are on their own.
At the K-12 level, there are so many choices and decisions involved. “Class sizes should be lower.” How low? “OK, it’s not feasible to hire enough teachers across the state for low class sizes everywhere, so we’ll set our EBF number based on lower class sizes for high-need schools.” And there are ever-increasing demands for bilingual education, but that’s a political choice, driven by activists’ desire to have schools promote that home language. Or the fact that it took until 2023 to actually acknowledge that students need to learn to sound out words — and that 1:1 tutoring makes little difference if that tutor is telling students to guess at words based on the picture — but we’re headed backwards on math.
- JS Mill - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 2:53 pm:
=President Davis Gates last week also called on Gov. Pritzker to convene a special session of the General Assembly=
Davis Gates needs to convene a special meeting in Chicago and get the city squared away before she fixes the states.
- Friendly Bob Adams - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 2:57 pm:
You have to give Davis Gates credit for getting her name out there all the time. The jury is out as to whether she’s good at anything else….
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 3:01 pm:
===The fact that this doesn’t happen here is simply evidence that===
Now explain every other state with this very problem.
C’mon. Did you not read this other post? https://capitolfax.com/2026/06/23/et-tu-greg-abbott/
Try looking around for a minute. This is a worldwide problem.
- Ducky - Tuesday, Jun 23, 26 @ 3:14 pm:
—Or the fact that it took until 2023 to actually acknowledge that students need to learn to sound out words — and that 1:1 tutoring makes little difference if that tutor is telling students to guess at words based on the picture — but we’re headed backwards on math.—
Preach. So many kids harmed by a longterm denial of strong data that the way our districts teach reading was fundamentally wrong.