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Helping some schools, stiffing others, and political backlash

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As Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration was steering $1 million to a private, family-run school, state and federal authorities were trying to collect thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes from the school, the Tribune has found.

That was just one of many issues Loop Lab School managed to sidestep.

Even though Blagojevich said his administration made a “bureaucratic mistake” in giving the money to the school, a number of potential roadblocks were cleared to make the grant possible: The governor gave a rare and swift pardon to the school’s director, a convicted felon; the school for the first time in its 25-year history registered as a charitable organization with the state; and the school filed three years’ worth of required state tax documents in one day.

And the kicker…

Loop Lab School had hoped to move into its space in fall 2007. But the city stopped all interior work on the property when inspectors found the contractor did not have required approvals and permits. Now, the building is in foreclosure and may soon be taken over by new owners.

Rep. Jack Franks is holding a hearing on the issue today, but he hasn’t been getting much cooperation from the administration. He does expect some adminstration officials to testify, however.

* Speaking of schools, it’s stuff like this that make you understand why the House passed a bill yesterday to revamp the Illinois State Board of Education. From a press release…

State Representative John Fritchey (D-Chicago) is calling upon Governor Rod Blagojevich to release almost one-half million dollars in funding which has been promised to local Chicago schools. The FY08 budget, passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor after an amendatory veto, included funding for 14 elementary schools and 3 high schools in Rep. Fritchey’s district totaling $495,000. […]

The school grants were not among the items vetoed. In spite of this fact, the Illinois State Board of Education, at the direction of the Governor’s office, has refused to release the funding for over eight months.

“These are dollars specifically earmarked for books and computers for school kids, at schools in the Governor’s backyard no less,” said Fritchey, in whose district Blagojevich also resides. “Yet these students and these schools are falling victim to the Governor’s political agenda. The situation is made even worse when you look at some of the questionable programs for which budgeted dollars have been released. It is pure hypocrisy for the Governor to claim a commitment to education while holding hostage money for books and computers”

Fritchey and the governor have been on the extreme outs for years.

* Also, I’m told that Rep. John Bradley’s district got stiffed bigtime by the guv. Bradley and Blagojevich are also enemies.

* BB (Before Blagojevich), the Board of Ed was a pretty independent body. Blagojevich convinced the General Assembly to let him take control, and he has used it as a parking place for political appointees and forced it to bow to his bidding. The Board won’t challenge the governor on school funding, even this year when Blagojevich’s funding proposal represented the smallest increase of his entire time in office.

* Yesterday, the House signaled that it has had enough…

The Illinois House has approved a plan to reduce the governor’s influence over the State Board of Education.

The measure would toss out the current board members, who were appointed by Governor Rod Blagojevich. Then a special panel would nominate 27 possible new board members for the governor to choose from.

The House approved the bill 86-21 Tuesday. It now goes to the state Senate.

Much of the vote was simply based on ill will towards the governor. Some of the opponents were Blagojevich allies, but others (including House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie - no Blagojevich fan) made solid arguments that the bill was the wrong move to make.

Check out the bill yourself.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 5:43 am

Comments

Governor

Do the right thing and resign. No one wants you anymore and it will give you time to concentrate on your defense.

Comment by Leave a light on George Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 7:56 am
The General Assembly unshackled Chicago Mayor Richard from the same governance structure to reform the Chicago Public Schools that the House seeks to foist upon Gov. Blagojevich, namely a super-panel that selects board members from which a Governor can choose. The sentiment is understandable in the current context, but it would hobble future, education-minded governors.

Comment by David Ormsby Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 8:00 am
Interesting that the Gov won’t approve funding for the public schools in Fritchey’s district, where his daughters would go if they went to a public school.

Comment by Sir Reel Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 8:09 am
the education system in Illinois needs a lot of reform. To start with we need to seperate the board of education and make these positions accountable. We need to get rid of tenure. We need somone to address why teachers are the least likely to be disciplined and reoved from positions compared to other proffessionals in Illinois.

We need to refomr school funding and get away from using property taxes and disparate funding. We need to stop penalizing private schools and use a voucher system for education. This bill is not a bad idea, is just fails to go far enough and get at much of the meat that still remains to be addressed.

Comment by Ghost Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 8:34 am
Too bad the Gen. Assembly web site is not streaming the audio from St. Gov. Admn. hearing this morning. I’d like to hear the state officials try to explain this. My guess is that the agency directors will send underlings to take the heat.

Comment by Slugo Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 9:11 am
The ISBE may be an “independent entity” but they aure ‘ain’t’ pure in this education debacle.

You all forget that it is staffed in the main by graduates of the schools of education who have common cause the the whole panoply of teachers — both qualidied and underqualified. No oversight, just overlook.

Until doomsday comes to a District, their oversight of the annual financial reports is over stated. These reports are in no sense audits and they give cover to bad management.

The ISBE staff dumbs down the statewide tests and norms up the results — covering bad instruction while providing false comfort to the parents.

The process by which increases in foundation grants — allegedly to remove all problems as if money were the answer — is a statistial joke. It is outsourced through the EFAB to a supposedly independent consulting firm which runs regression analyses. Once clue — quality of instruction is not a dependent variable. The firm has yet to come up with a result that did not call for more money, It knows on which side its bread is buttered.

Comment by Truthful James Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 9:16 am
The old cliche is “give him enough rope to hang himself”….this disaster we call our “governor” must have a rope 10 miles long….and the gutless legislators keep reeling off more to him, all the while whining about how mad they are with him…what a bunch.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 9:19 am
Illinois is the state with the most governments. Including counties, townships, towns, school boards, park boards, and sanitation boards, Illinois has 6,855 governments. A reason for the high number is the number of school districts. In other states where I lived (Calif., Colorado, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Ohio), each school district has at least one high school, at least one junior high, and at least one elem. school. Illinois has some districts which only have one school. Each district has a superintendent who has a high salary, and many superintendents have assistants, each of whom has a high salary. Each district can charge property taxes. It would be more efficient if some districts consolidated. Some taxpayers would receive lower property tax bills.

Comment by PhilCollins Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 9:40 am
They were concerned about separation of church and state? Give me a break. Incompetence or corruption — take your pick. Now that I think about it, it could be incompetent corruption.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 9:52 am
On principle, a State Board of Education aligned with the governor’s office is far superior to one that isn’t. It offers the possibility of marrying the technical expertise of the Board with the political muscle of the Governor’s office. Moreover, it creates accountability with the Board, and accountability is the hallmark of education at every other level (elected school boards and regional superintendents, and a federal secretary appointed by the President).

The structure right now is a good structure. Rep. Fritchey’s complaint is with the people manning it and the decisions those people are making, and regardless of whether his complaints are justified (I’m not close enough to the situation to know), they shouldn’t lead to a change in the structure. If education reform is going to happen, it would have to come from the governor’s office, legislature, state board working together, and an “independent” board might make that too hard. The disconnect right now is between the governor and the legislature; if that disconnect is solved (either by the present personnel or by changing the personnel involved), any issues with the state board will quickly be resolved as well.

Comment by Gus Frerotte's Clipboard Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 10:01 am
“On principle, a State Board of Education aligned with the governor’s office is far superior to one that isn’t. It offers the possibility of marrying the technical expertise of the Board with the political muscle of the Governor’s office.”

Generally true, Gus, excepting that Blago has ceded most of his power, albeit involuntarily, due to his so-called “reckless stewardship”.

Comment by The Doc Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 10:09 am
“Rope” commenter:

There may be ten miles of rope, but the legislature lacks the ability to build a gibbet ten miles and twelve feet high.

Doc:

Additional problem. Reform should come from the legislature which has the power of the purse, but if you look at the sources of their campaign coffers you will see that they would be biting the hands that assure their sinecures.

Comment by Truthful James Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 10:23 am
I wonder if the legislature knew what they were getting. If they did then why would they allow the governor control of the state school board. Surely it was a good idea at the time and might still be, but surely they knew the governor would misuse his newly found power.

Comment by Levois Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 10:53 am
Rich - Those funds Fritchey is talking about have nothing to do with ISBE.

Those were his pork projects that escaped the axe last fall. Looks like they didn’t escape the axe completely…

Comment by GoBearsss Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 11:24 am
Rep. John Bradley has been vocal of Rods way of doing the work of the people. Rod promised the small Carterville school district 1 million dollars to use towards a new high school, but along with other districts which were also promised money during his re-election campaign no check was ever sent except a 3 thousand dollar check which was donated to his campaign by Rezko. Carterville sent the money back and said no thanks.

Comment by Southern Illinois Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 11:46 am
Outsource public education to India. The Indian kids get high test scores and as far as I know do not pay property taxes. We could save enough money to fly the parents to India for a visit at Christmas. If and when the Illinois kids graduate, they could work their way home on a Chinese cargo ship. Kids who fail to make progress can transfer to a Chinese cell phone factory that is supervised by the People’s Liberation Army. Such a deal! Great vocational training and no worthless teachers and administrators to support with tax monies. Think of the pension savings! Does Kolkata Jr. High have a marching band?

Comment by Enemy of the State Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 12:05 pm
Government would be far more constructive and less dysfunctionally antagonistic in the long-term if we shifted to a consensus decision system that encourages compromise instead of “majority wins” that encourages aggressive steamrolling of minority perspectives.

Sure, finding consensus is slower, but it produces much better results, as evidenced by our Constitution, which cleverly checked and balanced power, especially in the Senate, where a single Senator can filibuster. Consensus also appears in our randomly selected juries, which ensure a direct citizen check on any abuses of the awesome powers of law enforcement to take your life, your freedom, your family, your land, your home, and your assets.

Rather than encouraging domination and opposition (a poor example to kids and citizens), we should be listening to each other and compromising to encourage opponents to at least stand aside. Obviously, it takes education and training to learn and effectively practice this constructive mindset, but it’s what most citizens routinely do in small group meetings.

True emergencies that require instant centralized power (very dangerous to Democracy) are extremely rare, as most can be anticipated and appropriate responses designed in advance. Education is very important, but it should not be an emergency.

Perhaps a new ISBE board with diverse perspectives that have to reach consensus could initiate a new attitude that strives to find ways to cooperate rather than fight. The first step would be to divide power by reflecting more diverse and independent perspectives. If properly trained, sharing power would encourage creativity to acheive consensus.

Given the importance and complexity of education, perhaps power might be shared as follows:
2 by citizens
2 by Governor
2 by Legislatures (Senate, House)
2 by education researchers (K-8, High School)
2 by school professinals (Admin, Teacher)
2 by parents (K-8, High School)

The above structure might need parents to ensure that if city, suburban, or rural areas aren’t already represented on the board, that the parents selected represent any area viewpoint missing.

A larger board could ensure more viewpoints, but also make consensus more difficult to achieve. If total consensus is too much to expect all at once, perhaps 3/4 majority would be a good place to start making government more respectful of minority viewpoints?

Ignoring or steamrolling others with “majority rules” only leads to abuses of power that cause endless and absurd swings of the pendulum as a reaction to bigger problems, which could have been prevented if extra effort was made up front.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 1:07 pm
Enema of the State

That was too perfect a comment. Best of the thread.

Many thanks

Comment by Truthful James Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 1:09 pm
Go Bearss,

Books and computers are now pork? Give up the spin.

And the funds are sitting in ISBE, and they are the agency that has the authority to release them. It has everything to do with them, and their pimping for the Governor.

Comment by Pork? Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 1:52 pm
If India actually offered superior education for far less via the web it might help our monopoly schools realize they need to improve.

Just meeting a minimum standard on basic skills tests is not the same as a quality education.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 1:58 pm
Anon @ 1:58 p.m.

If only the ‘minimum standard’ were a minimum STANDARD.

But it is not, as I pointed out on an earlier post. The ISBE, the supposed STANDARD setting agency, dumbed down the tests and normed up the results.

But they were halfway into good company. The ACT people dumbed down theirs as well.

I do not think any of the Asian tigers, nor the Europeans all of whom have greater competence in math and science at the elementary and high school level dumb down their tests.

Yet parents put up with this stuff except for those who no longer believe that education is an economic and a social good.

Comment by Truthful James Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 2:42 pm
I say we pour more billions into our education system. Then Chicago might get its public school graduation rate up to 54 percent!

Comment by The Mad Hatter Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 2:43 pm
Truthful James,

Does the “dumb downed” standard still represent a reasonable minimum (not ideal) expectation for students? In other words, are the students that pass functionally literate in English, math, and science?

If we want to measure higher achievement, we should probably have a different test, as just setting a second higher standard probably wouldn’t tell us anything useful on a basic skills test.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 2:58 pm
Anon @ 2:58

There is no correct answer to your essay question. I offer this in support of my POV — the amount of money spent on remediation of entry level college students so they can take entry level college courses and

the amount of time and money spent in the training programs necessary to provide functional literacy and numeracy to other high school graduates attempting to enter the work force directly whether it be cashiers or even apprentice tradesmen, the latter said without reference to gender.

And I ask you a question. If dumbing down is ‘good’ why the necessity to norm up?

Finally, when all else fails, let’s have another test to justify the failure? Sounds like a bureaucratic approach to me — more employment in the publci sector making up tests.

Comment by Truthful James Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 3:42 pm
Every story out of every blog and newspaper is more and more evidence of the need for a Constitutional Convention.

The idea that you can separate Illinois insane political class from the Constitution that created it is laughable. The IBRT Bozos who think IL can be improved absent a Constitution could NEVER produce a scenario whereby that could be a reality.

No Con Con, no improvement.
___

As for education…

Fund Children, not “districts” and other arbitrary bureaucratic constructs

Comment by Bruno Wednesday, Apr 2, 08 @ 10:52 pm
Truthful James,

To answer your question, we need a minimum (not medium, good, or ideal) standards test. Obviously, the test will seem pretty dumb to most people because it’s designed to measure a bare MINIMUM standard of the most basic skills in English, math, and science needed to ensure people can function independently in society.

Principles, teachers, and parents should certainly set their own much higher standards, but testing for those ideals probably isn’t the government’s job.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 2:03 pm
Anon @ 2:03 p.m.

As Lewis Carroll had the Queen of Hearts say: “…Words mean just what I intend them to mean…”

You wrote:

“…designed to measure a bare MINIMUM standard of the most basic skills in English, math, and science needed to ensure people can function independently in society…”

That raises more questions than would be permitted by Rich in his limited space. Looking past the fact that you mean ‘individuals’ rather than ‘people’ you choose to lower the bar to the lowest comon denominator extant, one which we would apply to the minimum training necessary to be given to the mentally handicapped. And testing would be required by the government in any event.

For the rest, you choose to use a flexible ruler. I don’t know why Principles (sic)are listed. But Teachers can not set their standards individually for they are separately qualified and underqualified to do so. The Parents have no recourse.

In fact, each grade level must have a common standard for entry into the next succeeding grade or chaos would ensue as preparation for study would vary widely.

If public education is to be supported by taxpayers, there must be clearly understood and consistent measurements which we call standards, Otherwise we can not have any insight into failure by either the teacher or the student.

Comment by Truthful James Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 2:36 pm