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This isn’t the answer

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Illinois

Local School Council members from more than a quarter of Chicago Public Schools are urging city leaders to come up with local solutions to the district’s budget crisis.

As CPS has stared down a $1 billion budget shortfall, city officials led by CPS chief Forrest Claypool have pushed for increased funding from the state to fill a chunk of the yawning budget gap. But lobbying and demonstrations downstate won’t be enough to prevent cuts at city schools, according to restive LSC members from across the city. More than 500 LSC members from 141 CPS schools signed onto a petition demanding action that doesn’t require approval from Springfield including shortening the school day and year; draining funds from TIF districts; and canceling plans to build a new high school to be named for Barack Obama. […]

The statement did not mention local revenue sources or cuts suggested by the LSC group.

They’re right that the city needs to stop waiting on an ultimate solution from the state.

But cutting the length of school days and shortening the school year just don’t make sense when CPS is making significant progress with its graduation rate. CPS used to have one of the shortest school days and school years of any district in the country (and even much of the developed world).

It’s beyond me why school council members would suggest such a thing, other than they’re shilling for the CTU.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:22 am

Comments

They could always raise property taxes to an appropriate funding level that matches other regions(?)

Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:27 am
Or ask people who have made billions of dollars working in Chicago to pay more…

Comment by Delimma Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:30 am
Public education across the state should be a constitutional responsibility and obligation of the entire state.
The benefits? Solid education of OUR state’s children AND soaring home values as all schools approach par in each district. It would be a wealth creator

Comment by Baruch Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:31 am
Cutting school days would be a step back. They are making progress, despite some very poor management.

=draining funds from TIF districts; and canceling plans to build a new high school to be named for Barack Obama=

Both should be considered. Waiting for a state rescue when the state is also broke hardly seems a plan. Kudos to the LSC members.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:31 am
Rich, have you actually met many LSC members? First of all, the elections are very low turnout, and any moderately active political organization can dominate them, often with school employees.

They also have very limited power. It used to be they could hire the principal (lots of Hispanic/African American conflicts there) and maintenance staff.

I recall a number of times the LSCs abused their power for incredible propaganda. I remember in the early 2000s when I was doing some work in an uptown school where Slim Coleman’s group took over. I saw some of the most hateful, anti American booklets that I’ve ever seen being handed out to the kids there.

If we could expect candidates of a similar “quality” elected on the main school board, it certainly wouldn’t be an upgrade IMHO.

Comment by Illinois Bob Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:32 am
I agree that Chicago needs to find solutions that do not depend on additional state funds. Chicago is a rich city and can pay more for effective schools.

The questions of fairness need to be set aside for now. Avoiding disaster is the priority.

Comment by Last Bull Moose Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:34 am
Major issue is the longer school day/year wasn’t fully funded, so cutting back the day/year won’t save any money because no money was ever put towards it.

The gains are a bit of a mirage imo. Rahm’s juked the numbers and I don’t buy the “we’re doing better while spending less!” argument for a half second. I think the real answer is falling DHS counts.

Comment by From the 'Dale to HP Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:44 am
Consolidation may also be considered.

In 2000, CPS had 93,000 students in 86 high schools. Today CPS has 101,000 students in 140 high schools, excluding alternative schools. That’s a 63 percent increase in schools against an 8 percent increase in students.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 9:52 am
=It’s beyond me why school council members would suggest such a thing, other than they’re shilling for the CTU.=

BINGO!
http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/the-watchdogs-ctu-allies-benefit-from-newly-enriched-union-foundation/

Comment by Chicago Schooler Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 10:01 am
@Formerly Known As…

I thought they expanded schools to combat the severe overcrowding issues?

Oh I’m sure there were plenty of kickbacks. However considering that overcrowding in some Chicago High Schools is still terrible I’m not sure that’s the optimal solution.

Still poorer Downstate districts have been having to consolidate and deal with the overcrowding for years. Hard choices all around I suppose.

Comment by Chicago_Downstater Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 10:03 am
=I agree that Chicago needs to find solutions that do not depend on additional state funds. Chicago is a rich city and can pay more for effective schools.=

Chicago taxpayers already pay twice for teacher pensions, the biggest cost driver in this crisis–through property taxes for CTU pensions and income taxes for all other teachers in the state. Chicago taxpayers are the only ones double-taxed.

Its ridiculous to say Chicago taxpayers should bear the burden alone when the state has the primary obligation to fund education, and sends just 74 cents to CPS for every dollar it sends to schools in the rest of Illinois.

Comment by Chicago Schooler Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 10:08 am
- Chicago Schooler -

Explain property taxes paid in Cook and the Collars, and their rates, and the Chicago City property rates and TIFs and Chicago paying what is “owed”

Thanks.

Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 10:16 am
whats interesting is Chicago got Madigan to pass a law that temoved these as areas the union could bargain over, so that the district didnt have to raise pay if it added school days, essentialy. not sure why they would cut days, as it would t save money other then physical overhead, lights etc.

Comment by Ghost Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 10:18 am
I guess I’ll take a turn at helping Illinois Bob get his facts straight today:

Chicago LSCs still have authority to hire their school’s principals, in fact, that’s the only real duty they still have left. Everything else is advisory.

To the post:

One of the biggest financial mistakes related to CPS was made 20 years ago when the legislature eliminated the Chicago property tax levy that went straight to the teachers pension fund. Reinstating that is a no-brainer.

Comment by Right time Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 10:25 am
TIFs drive me crazy. We have 2 beautiful pieces of property that were either public housing (Lathrop Homes) on the Chicago river or Hospital at Montrose and Lake Shore Drive. They were completely put into TIF districts and sold to private developers. Now there are some payouts to Park District, but these 2 premium sites will not pay into CPS for 23 years. How can there be a crisis when we act like this? If you live outside of Chicago, why would you send us a dime?

Comment by jeffinginchicago Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 10:51 am
===The statement did not mention local revenue sources===

Chicago has the lowest property tax rate in all of Cook County. An increase in property taxes for CPS should be at the top of the list of options that they should consider if more funding is needed.

===including shortening the school day and year;===

For years CPS was well known for having the shortest school day in the state. It has only been the last few years that CPS lengthened the school day to provide the same amount of class time as other school districts across the state.

===draining funds from TIF districts===

TIF district funds are collected for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects. The money is not collected to pay for the operation of schools, mainly employee salaries and benefits, or to fund the pension plan for CTU members. The diversion of funds from its stated function is a disservice to those who pay into TIF funds.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 11:00 am
jeffinginchicago- That Cuneo site has been vacant for over ten years. And because it’s a hospital, it is completely tax exempt.

No one would take the property and do all the remediation work that is needed to make it usable without some sort of incentive, unless the owners would be willing to sell at a bargain, which so far has not been the case.

Comment by Juice Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 11:04 am
@Chicago Schooler-

=Chicago taxpayers already pay twice for teacher pensions=

No,, yo don’t. Go get yourself a calculator and then add up ALL of the money CPS gets from the state. You are not subsidizing anything school wise. Just a fact.

Chicago and the collar counties (metro) are THE economic driver for the state. It is silly when people downstate talk about their money going to the city or that they want to jettison Chicago.

Comment by JS Mill Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 11:12 am
It may be counterintuitive but they might indeed be able to cut the length of the school day without impacting performance much (see Eric Zorn’s excellent collection of research back during the “longer school day” debate - there’s scant evidence it helps and the most recent extension largely went to extracurriculars).

Length of the school year is a different matter entirely, in fact they should do away with 3-consecutive-month summer vacation and stagger it.

Comment by lake county democrat Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 11:17 am
Juice, I agree with everything you wrote. But that still doesnt make the case that the property be in a TIF. Unless you think lakefront property needs underwriting by the City to be developed. Again try explaining that to someone in Rockford. It is because it is a TIF that everyone gets a say and the development/sale is slowed down. You can’t set a price on the land until you know what you can build. The second it is sold the tax exempt status goes away and that property should be paying my daughters teachers in September not her kids teachers.

Comment by jeffinginchicago Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 11:25 am
I didn’t put this letter together, but I watched the process online via groups. The laundry list comes from
wish lists from various LSC members. Imagine the difficulty in getting 25% of the LSCs in CPS around one letter and you can see how a couple of items in there were added weren’t unanimously supported.

To my knowledge, they are not shills for the CTU. More a group of LSC parents who are just fed up with CPS telling us to yell at the state while threatening more cuts.

Comment by Kyle Hillman Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 11:33 am
To Oswego Willy the parent LSC members and other parent organizations from CPS schools have discussed property taxes and the PTELL cap. They are aware of the referendum option to go beyond the cap.

To put it simply Willy the Mayor who controls the school board will not consider allowing CPS to call a PTELL referendum because the city plans of steadily raising property taxes for years to meet police, fire, and municipal worker pension funds. Other elected Democrats in Chicago question if a tax increase for CPS above the PTELL cap could pass a referendum. We need to remember most residents and registered voters in the City have no children in CPS.

The middle class and wealthy of Chicago have largely abandoned CPS with exceptions I discuss below. So a study by Professor Ann Owens, a Chicago native, found that income segregation is particularly high for families with children in the Chicago (in fact, households without kids are increasingly less segregated by income). In Chicago, households with kids face income segregation that is higher than it is in 70 of 100 largest U.S. cities. Of the students enrolled in CPS, 86 percent are low income, according to CPS’ website. That percentage is off the charts in comparison to he poverty percentage of all households in the City. Another telling statistic is that currently only 9.4% of CPS students are white while 45.3 percent of the city’s total population is white, and those remaining white students are largely clustered in what Professor Owens calls “affluence bubbles.” People who can afford to move to neighborhoods close to top schools, those neighborhoods become more expensive to live in. Overall those neighborhoods are in their majority white.

An example of this problem is the Mayor himself who sends his children to private school as does Mr. Claypool the current CPS CEO. Most of Chicago’s historic Democratic Party leaders sent their children to Catholic schools over the years.

So Willy the problem here with raising property taxes is complex in big part because the families with money and real property values more often than not do not have skin in the game.

Comment by Rod Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 11:45 am
1) The reason Chicago property taxes are relatively lower is because Cook County taxes commercial real estate at a higher rate than residential. All other counties in Illinois tax commercial and residential property at the same rate. Those big skyscrapers downtown pay a lot of taxes, which means when the taxing bodies levy, they ask residents for less. That’s a nice break for Chicago residents that the rest of the state could enjoy, too — as long as they are willing to change the law to enable their counties to jack up rates on businesses.

2) Maybe Chicagoans and Cook County residents should complain about the rest of the state not paying high enough local sales taxes. What’s good for the goose….

Comment by Random thoughts Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 11:50 am
@Random thoughts 11:50 ==The reason Chicago property taxes are relatively lower is because Cook County taxes commercial real estate at a higher rate than residential.==

That does not prevent raising the residential rate to equal the residential rate the rest of the state pays. Also, when districts outside of Chicago need more money for their schools, they hold referendums to raise their own taxes. Chicago should do the same.

Comment by DuPage Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 1:25 pm
- Rod -

Sorry for the delay…

Because Emanuel and the School Board refuses to see how the local power exercised by monetary decisions, be they allowing and supporting the raising of taxes, or the calling upon leaders to take a stand beyond Springfield.

My point?

The Mayor must do 2 things…

Acknowledge property taxes in the city do not meet the mathematical criteria in a formula similar to the suburbs and downstate.

Acknowledge that refusing to address those dissimilar formula by Chicago needs to end.

With great respect to your incredibly thoughtful comment, thanks for the chance to respond, - Rod -

OW

Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jun 22, 16 @ 7:13 pm