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* Yvette Shields at the Bond Buyer…
The Illinois General Assembly established the Chicago Board of Education in 1872 with an 11-member board appointed by the mayor, according to 2017 Chicago Civic Federation piece. In 1979, the district fiscally collapsed and lost market access. During the 1970s and 1980s it faced multiple teacher strikes in addition to its fiscal crisis and leadership turnover.
State lawmakers created the Chicago School Finance Authority in 1980 to provide fiscal oversight. The 1988 school reform act reorganized the board structure which paved the way for a nominating commission to submit board recommendations to the mayor. In 1995, then Mayor Richard M. Daley won state legislation to give him direct control of the schools with power to appoint the board and CEO.
The district slowly regained its fiscal footing and received new city funding and tax-increment financing help that helped rebuild its ratings. But CPS also went on a borrowing spree to fix and build new schools and as expenses grew and state aid remained stagnant the district turned to one-shot gimmicks like scoop-and-toss debt restructuring to manage. That left it again with junk ratings and a structural imbalance of $1 billion.
The latest turnaround began in 2016 and 2017 when new state aid and state help with pension funding came through, a local pension levy was restored and a new capital improvement tax levy approved.
* More from that Civic Federation history…
In 1993, as part of a deal that included a two-year $400 million debt-financed bailout of CPS, the Illinois General Assembly expanded the Authority’s powers to include independent management assessments and audits of the Board.
Not to mention the complete lack of pension funding by Mayor Daley.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, May 5, 21 @ 1:51 pm
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Turns out the fiscal disasters have been caused by mayoral lackeys. Doubt the mouthbreathers will take a hint (or a mint).
Comment by Shield Wednesday, May 5, 21 @ 2:02 pm
US style “neoliberal” anti-tax ideologym, fininaicalization, and over expansion do to charters charters CPS to perpetual finance crisis. Daley, Rahm, and MLL are to blame. But so are downstate pols (all of them), pols DC, Republican & Democrat - all bought into a kind of capitalism that just doesn’t work. You can’t even minimally run a public edu system that pays even minimal lip service to helping best/brightest born in poverty to rise up with the kind of Capitalism the US has practiced since 1980s Other rich countries still have profitable capitalism - but less brutal conditions for bottom 1/2, like just Canada where parent income only predicts 1/4th of where their kid lands on class structure in adulthood. In USA today that # is 45%. In 1977 it was 1/3rd. Tax the rich. Spend it on public edu for bottom 1/2. Copy what used to work here and still works in other, less brutual, but still rich countries.
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/chicago-public-schools-cps-fiscal-crisis
Comment by From Jacobin Wednesday, May 5, 21 @ 6:19 pm
Just saw this. nevermind. Nice. — SN
Comment by noonan@cccctu.gmail.com Wednesday, May 5, 21 @ 6:20 pm
Let me get this straight, Chicagoans have never elected their school board? It has always been appointed? It seems like we’re headed into experimental territory until it doesn’t work….
Comment by Levois J Wednesday, May 5, 21 @ 8:19 pm
**It seems like we’re headed into experimental territory until it doesn’t work….**
Yea… and we don’t have any examples of such a thing happening anywhere else. I wonder if there are any other places where they have elected school boards?
Comment by SaulGoodman Thursday, May 6, 21 @ 7:23 am