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Education advocates to descend on Springfield

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Illinois

* AP…

The head of Chicago Public Schools say the district has “reached the point of no return” and faces severe cuts without “equal” funding from the state.

Schools CEO Forrest Claypool said Wednesday that with only one week left in the state’s Legislature’s session, the district must “make a statement the governor cannot ignore.”

Claypool on Thursday will lead a rally in Springfield seeking more state funds for Chicago’s schools. The district faces a $1 billion deficit next school year.

* The Tribsters ask a good question…

To what end? The only legislation the district has endorsed is a complex but Senate-approved overhaul of the state’s school funding formula that would provide CPS with hundreds of millions of yet-to-be-budgeted dollars.

But there’s also a budget proposal from House Speaker Michael Madigan that would cut CPS some extra dough as the system threatens massive budget cuts for next school year. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Forrest Claypool issued non-committal statements about it on Wednesday night. […]

“With one voice, these districts across the state will express the outrage that we feel toward a funding system that so blatantly discriminates against poor and minority children throughout the state of Illinois,” Claypool said.

* Claypool’s statement last night…

“On behalf of the administrators, teachers, parents and students of Chicago Public Schools, we stand strongly behind the efforts of the Illinois General Assembly — particularly the Chicago delegation — to bring additional resources to public schools. We applaud them for being champions of public education by taking these important steps to move toward greater stability for CPS and working to ensure a brighter future for our children.”

Emanuel called the vote “an important first step.” Subscribers know more about the Chicago angle.

* CPS needs some state help. No doubt. But they also need to put more of their own revenue skin in the game…

Even Raise Your Hand, a parent group frequently among CPS’ critics, said members were flooding the offices of the governor and other lawmakers with phone calls, member Joy Clendenning said.

“We need you to join with us in demanding that our public servants serve the public. Of course, Gov. Rauner, of course, our legislators in Springfield, but even though the mayor appointed you, you’re here to serve the children of Chicago, and we need you to talk to the mayor,” about local solutions,” she said. “We believe it will be even more convincing for Springfield if we show what we’re doing up here in Chicago as well.”

Critics say Springfield can’t fix the entire problem. Even if all current school funding bills were to pass, they wouldn’t plug CPS’ entire projected budget shortfall.

The Board of Education also has a responsibility to advocate for more money for CPS by raiding the city’s tax-increment financing accounts, and to spend what they have more wisely, said Sabah Hussain, a student at Lane Tech High School, which that could lose more than $8 million from its operating budget.

* Press release…

Over 2,000 school superintendents, education advocates, parents, students, and legislators will rally in the rotunda of the Illinois State Capitol on Thursday, May 26 to urge Illinois’ Governor and House lawmakers to pass statewide education funding reform this legislative session. They will advocate for a comprehensive fix for Illinois’ broken public school funding system, which has penalized students for decades by shortchanging cash-strapped districts throughout in rural, urban, suburban, and downstate areas and cheating them of the high quality education they deserve.

Many attendees and participants are members of Funding Illinois’ Future, a broad coalition of more than 230 members that include school superintendents, principals, faith leaders, parents, teachers, education reform groups, and others from throughout Illinois. They have worked together for the past three years advocating a fix to the state’s education funding system like Senate Bill 231 so that dollars are distributed more fairly to districts with the greatest needs and lack local resources to properly invest in their schools. (www.fundingILfuture.org)

WHO: Speakers include –

∙ Pastor T. Ray McJunkins, Union Baptist Church, Springfield
∙ Kris Reichmann, Illinois for Educational Equity (ILEE)
∙ Dr. David Lett, Superintendent, Pana School District
∙ Dr. Gregg Fuerstenau, Superintendent, Taylorville School District
∙ State Senator Andy Manar
∙ State Representative Avery Bourne
∙ Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, Superintendent, Peoria Public Schools
∙ State Representative Jehan Gordon-Booth
∙ Caroline Crozier, LULAC of Illinois
∙ Forrest Claypool, CEO, Chicago Public Schools
∙ Jennifer Garrison, Superintendent, Sandoval School District
∙ Kristin Humphries, Superintendent, East Moline School District

* Also, too, people who write any education-related advocacy materials should meticulously check for typos before hitting “send.”

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 10:06 am

Comments

I’m confused. The linked flyer correctly uses “capital” to refer to Springfield and then “capitol” to refer to the building where the legislators meet. It looks to me as though the “Tattler” is the one needing a competent editor.

Comment by notnormal Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 10:36 am
Over simplification, yes, I know…but doesn’t Chicago portray itself as the economic engine of the state and the rest of us as their beneficiaries? More chickens coming home to roost, it seems.

Comment by DGD Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 10:36 am
“But they also need to put more of their own revenue skin in the game…”

Agree. CPS gets about 50% of their revenue from local sources. Of the next 9 largest districts in the state, 7 of those 9 get 68% or more of their funding from local sources, despite many also having higher poverty figures and much lower property tax bases per pupil.

Comment by Dance Band on the Titanic Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 11:19 am
Oops, meant high, not higher, poverty figures.

Comment by Dance Band on the Titanic Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 11:20 am
“7 of those 9 get 68% or more of their funding from local sources”

Does that count the TRS contribution, or not?

If it does not, then you are comparing apples and oranges.

Comment by Chris Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 11:28 am
The Irony, of course, is that CPS moved to the same inequitable funding model Claypool is railing against.

The per pupil funding model doesn’t take into account discrepancies regarding outside funds like what parents can raise or what schools can generate. One elementary school generates 1M more in revenue, yet gets the same per pupil allocation as poor community schools.

In other words, CPS deliberately is creating a funding system that discriminates against minority children while screaming at the state for doing the same thing.

Comment by Kyle Hillman Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 11:41 am
“One elementary school generates 1M more in revenue, yet gets the same per pupil allocation as poor community schools.”

First, no CPS elementary school generates 1 million in annual fundraising. That’s an at least 2-fold exaggeration.

Second, and MUCH more importantly, there are MULTIPLE buckets of per pupil funding in CPS–(1) the basic per pupil funding that is done simply by headcount (about $4400 per kid), then (2) IEP based funds ($611 million total), (3) poverty-based funds (over $450 million total) and (4) several other specialized distributions that add up to close to $200 million.

So, it is CATEGORICALLY UNTRUE to say that a low poverty school with 1000 kids gets the same funding as a high poverty school with 1000 kids. And, keep in mind, even a “low poverty” CPS school is still higher poverty than many suburban schools–the lowest in the district is 12.24%, nearly 90% of CPS students attend schools with 50% or higher low-income rates, and 36% attend schools with over 90% low-income kids.

Does CPS and Chicago need to do something different, especially as it relates to TIFs? You bet. But not discussing the actual facts lets EVERYONE off the hook for making real changes.

Comment by Chris Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 12:16 pm
==- notnormal - Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 10:36 am:==

Spot on.

capital: “he most important city or town of a country or region, usually its seat of government and administrative center.”

https://www.google.com/search?q=define+capital&oq=define+capital&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2188j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

capitol: a building in which a state legislative body meets

https://www.google.com/search?q=define+capital&oq=define+capital&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2188j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=define+capitol

Comment by Precinct Captain Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 12:18 pm
===faces severe cuts without “equal” funding from the state.===

Another option is an ‘equal’ property tax rate between the City of Chicago and the rest of Cook County. A higher property tax rate for CPS would raise a substantial amount of money.

Comment by Hit or Miss Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 12:25 pm
Rumor: Someone doesn’t share his apple. Enjoy the bus ride.

Comment by A guy Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 12:25 pm
A lot of CPS schools get more “in kind” contributions than cash. I remember doing some work for Decatur Classical School on the North Side (one of the highest performing schools in the state) and they had a lot of blue collar parents and teachers working scads of hours making better furniture and accessories for the school.

I was REALLY impressed with the teachers there. They came in just about every day during the summer on their own time to work to improve teaching methods and curricula, and they did a great job. Teaching Latin to elementary school kids…WHAT A CONCEPT!

It was an interesting site. The park surrounding it was built on a garbage landfill, and because the politically connected owners didn’t want to be saddled with the environmental clean up for its retirement they donated it to the Chicago Park district. They didn’t do what’s required today; providing methane gas venting and flaring until the site was safe from decomposure gasification. They had sink holes all over the place from the formation of the methane pockets, and we were called it to find out if there were gas leaks because you could smell the gas.

We found the source of the gas from the old dump, but I never heard what they did to fix it.

Comment by Illinois Bob Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 12:45 pm
Take a look at Disney Magnet Elementary and get back to me Chris.

In the mean time I will be here in the building rolling my eyes at the sudden call for an end to discriminatory funding while CPS discriminates against kids in my neighborhood with an equally discriminatory formula.

Comment by Kyle Hillman Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 12:49 pm
@Chris

I agree about the TIF money. It’s a shame that prime property that would have been developed anyway (if it was worth it) took tax dollars that should have gone to schools instead of Daley and Rahm’s crony developers.

I’d like to see the statute changed to require all affected taxing bodies approve the TIF, and extension of the TIF, before it could move forward.

IT probably wouldn’t make a difference in Chicago, though, since the machine controls the schools and city hall as well.

Comment by Illinois bob Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 12:50 pm
“A higher property tax rate for CPS would raise a substantial amount of money.”

So who is going to propose the PTELL exception/exemption in Springfield? Note: the (effective) property tax rates on commercial and industrial property in the city are already in the nationwide top 5 (or is it top 3?). It’s the residential that’s lower, and y’all suburbanites could have that, too, if you wanted a school district the quality of CPS.

Comment by Chris Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 1:00 pm
Also, regarding Disney Magnet:

62.56% low income.

Is it really at the point where a school that–outside of Chicago–would be in the poorest 20% of schools in the state is considered too advantaged because it is in the “richest” 20% of schools in CPS? And thus gets ‘”too much” somehow?

Comment by Chris Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 1:29 pm
=== Second, and MUCH more importantly, there are MULTIPLE buckets of per pupil funding in CPS ===

Chris, I don’t know how you think CPS distributes funding.

But there is a reason they do not report per-pupil spending by school, only by district.

The biggest driver of spending is labor costs, and labor costs are driven largely by the seniority and educational attainment of the teachers AT a school, not the poverty level of the students.

If anything, one would expect that the higher the poverty level of a school, the lower the educational attainment and experience level of their teachers.

Again, we don’t know, because that number is not reported.

Hillman may be right, but Chris is definitely incorrect.

Comment by Juvenal Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 1:45 pm
@Chris

You clearly get it. If we were serious about helping the economically disadvantaged kids we’d pay more attention to HOW the money is being spent and what better student outcomes result. Just giving failing systems more money to hire more cronies and keep the abysmally low contact hours in CPS does pretty much nothing for them…

Comment by Illinois bob Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 1:51 pm
Juvenal:

You know I’m wrong why?

Because if I were right, then there would be more data reported?

Do you actually know thing one about CPS? They can barely manage *anything* data related.

Anyway, I find it *highly* ironic that the bastion of defense of state employees union rights, salaries and benefit that the CapFax comments usually are is SOOOOO negative about the CTU’s salaries and benefits. The brotherhood only seems to extend so far.

And, btw, I do understand that the school’s ‘budget amount’ does not pay the actual full salary and benefits of every teacher at the school, and rather pays for a designated FTE number, with everything over that paid ’system wide’. And this obviously leads to some inequities in addition to the baseline inequities.

That said, that element of inequity is NOT being suggested as a basis for state funding. No one has suggested that state funding be based on a statewide median (or whatever) FTE salary which would give a big bump to downstate schools *relative to* the higher salary-scaled suburban schools (and CPS). So, *that* element was certainly not being alleged by Kyle.

Comment by Chris Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 3:51 pm
Bob: “since the machine controls the schools and city hall as well.”

Not that would change with an elected school board; would just add another group of cronies to grease.

Comment by Chris Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 3:53 pm
@Chris

You’re right again. I saw what happened when they hade elected LSCs, and it was largely a disaster. For Chrissakes, one LSC even elected Slim Coleman and his fellow radicals, and they put out some of the worst anti-American propaganda to the kids I’ve ever seen.

About the only clout that the LSCs had was in hiring principals and maintenance staff. it was pretty much all racial politics that drove the process. At Curie they fired a very good African American principal and hired a new Hispanic principal fro purely racial reasons. Eventually that problem was corrected. the system resulted in hiring many six figure administrators that couldn’t even write a coherent paragraph, let alone an expository letter to report. I saw some really great building engineers harassed out of their jobs by LSC hired principals because they weren’t the same race. they fired some engineers that had I incredible work ethics and knew their business replaced by people who wouldn’t open a valve because they might break one of their extended fingernails.

the same people who elected Mayor Rahm and the alderman would elect the school board, so why on earth would anyone think they’d make better electoral decisions there?

Comment by Illinois Bob Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 4:43 pm
As a socio-economic experiment- what if CPS gets less money and nothing happens to test scores and graduation rates. More money hasn’t improved things so maybe less money will be neutral. So much for the argument that money correlates positively with student acievement

Comment by Sue Thursday, May 26, 16 @ 5:33 pm