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* The Sun-Times has an interesting story today about why this latest school funding lawsuit has better prospects than the previous two, which were shot down by the IL Supreme Court…
As in Illinois, previous suits challenging New York State’s school funding system had failed. But in 1993, a coalition there filed suit alleging for the first time that the system had a “disparate racial impact” based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
After 10 years and several appeals, New York’s highest court ruled in 2003 in favor of the plaintiffs. Further appeals by New York’s governor ended with the Court of Appeals upholding the ruling in 2006 and ordering the state to meet a minimum funding figure. That new funding level was finally enacted in April 2007.
Those involved in two previous lawsuits in Illinois said that without the new “disparate impact” claim, the Chicago Urban League’s suit would face bleak prospects.
“The earlier ruling of the court that there really wasn’t a binding right to a quality education had put a roadblock in the path of any lawsuits,” said Don Moore of Designs for Change. Still, he said, this new battle “is going to be difficult.” […]
Others argued that the Urban League’s suit has merit beyond its civil rights claims. Illinois courts declined to hear an earlier suit, based on a lack of criteria to determine whether schools were providing a “high-quality” education.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act and Illinois Learning Standards since enacted by the State Board of Education now fill that gap.
* Author and think tanker Richard Kahlenberg argues against the lawsuit and for Sen. James Meeks’ idea to open up suburban schools to inner city students…
What Chicago students need even more than higher per capita spending is what New Trier, Naperville and Geneva schools provide: middle-class environments. It’s an advantage to have peers who are academically engaged and expect to go to college; parents who actively volunteer in the classroom and hold school officials accountable; and highly qualified teachers who have high expectations. On average, all these ingredients to good schools are far more likely to be found in middle-class than poor schools.
[…]To provide genuine equality of educational opportunity, Sen. Meeks shouldn’t be seeking merely equal funding—a 21st Century version of “separate but equal.” Instead, a reasonable number of low-income students in failing Chicago schools should be given the opportunity to attend high-performing schools in Chicago’s affluent suburbs.
This may sound like a radical idea, but long-standing interdistrict public school choice programs exist in several metropolitan areas—including Boston, St. Louis, Hartford, Conn., Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Rochester, N.Y., and Indianapolis. Typically, low-income students who transfer into these programs achieve at high levels and are more likely to graduate and go on to college.
Even Chicago has experienced successful urban-suburban integration through the historic, court-ordered Gautreaux housing programs, which gave low-income minority families a chance to live in the suburbs. Gautreaux students rose to the occasion and performed significantly better when given the chance to attend good middle-class schools. Meeks would do well to push for a new school-based version of Gautreaux allowing low-income Chicago students a chance to attend good middle-class suburban schools. Overwhelming evidence suggests that equal spending just isn’t enough.
* The Tribune editorial board supports some of Meeks’ agenda and offers up a bit of advice…
“If we’re not going to evaluate educators on student performance, we’re missing the boat,” he said Thursday. “If we evaluate students based on their performance every week when they take a test, why shouldn’t we regularly evaluate teachers on the job they’re doing?”
This sort of imaginative thinking drives the public education industry berserk. Follow Meeks’ line of thinking and you might get to other frightening heresies, such as paying big bonuses to the best teachers—and promptly firing the worst.
* And Phil Kadner recalls former state Sen. Art Berman’s scenario from nearly 20 years ago…
Berman predicted at the time that state legislators never would address the [school funding] problem. A tax hike would be required, and they wouldn’t want to put their careers at risk by voting for such a measure.
“So how is this problem going to get solved? I asked. Berman’s response seems prophetic today.
Someone is going to file a lawsuit against the state, he said, claiming it has failed in its constitutional responsibility to adequately and fairly fund the public schools.
A court then will order the state to change the way it funds public education, Berman continued.
“And that will solve the problem?” I inquired.
Berman laughed and shook his head from side to side.
“No, because the legislators will never be able to agree on a solution,” he said. “They will argue a lot. But they will do nothing. And then someone will file another lawsuit claiming that the state of Illinois had failed to follow the previous court directive to change the school funding system.”
Then the court would spell out exactly what the state had to do to comply with the law, and the legislators would be happy because they could go home and tell the voters that it wasn’t their fault that taxes were being raised. The legislators would blame the court system.
“And then we’ll get public school funding reform,” Berman said. “Of course, that process could take five years.”
He was probably right.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 10:51 am
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Five years is awfully optimistic. The New York example cited was ten.
Taking just African-American voters, if they care enough about this issue, they should reconsider their allegiance to local Democrats.
For six years, you’ve had the self-proclaimed African-American governor. You’ve had the Godfather, Emil Jones, controlling the Senate. You’ve had a Democratic House whose majority is contingent upon African-American legislators.
If they won’t deliver, what’s the point? Revive the Harold Washington Party and bring a truly independent caucus to Springfield.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 11:32 am
==Berman’s response seems prophetic today.==
No. Berman was already noting the law suits regarding this issue being filed in other states. We have been arguing over this and watching special interests go to court over this for twenty years.
Even for those states that had courts force action and had schools refunded, we have not seen an improvement in school test scores, or better quality education. We do see better maintained schools, more modern schools, better prepared schools, and better staffed schools after these lawsuits have changed how education is funded - but we don’t see improvements at a student level.
Education is more than a cash issue. We have a crisis based on more than just money or funding. Shoveling more money into the current system will not give us better results. We know this. Look at South Carolina and New Jersey. Kansas.
This is not new. It has already been tried. It doesn’t work.
Berman, and other state legislators across the country saw these lawsuits already being filed.
Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 11:35 am
The idea of opening up suburban schools to inner city students is not a bad one. I wonder if it is logistically sound? How many kids are sufficiently close to a suburban school that transport to and from school could be provided. And how many kids could be absorbed into these schools.
It seems aother idea would be to hire the folks at these successfull schools to come in and do a ground up fix on the existing schools. Set the programs, standards, hire staff etc. In other words use the suburban schools as a model and create better schools locally.
Comment by Ghost Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 11:37 am
Ghost, I believe that idea is called busing. It’s a terrible idea.
Give it a try in Illinois, and you’ll revive the GOP like jumper cables to the heart.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 11:51 am
Why not increase the number of affordable housing slots in areas where high-performing schools exist.
Part of the problem here is that the greater Chicagoland area is neither economically nor racially all that diverse, Gautreaux notwithstanding, and a lot of those leafy green North shore suburbs, the ones with the outstanding public schools claim they just don’t have room for any more affordable housing. Our land is too expensive, they say, to give it away.
I have some problems with the notion of inner city kids making a several-hours-long daily trek up to New Trier and back in order to get a decent education. Over four years, say, that’s a lot of time. And what happens to the money that should be going to improve local schools in those kids’ neighborhoods. Do the pols get to misuse it all because nobody cares any more how the inner city schools do. We know they won’t lower taxes.
Comment by Cassandra Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 11:53 am
“What Chicago students need even more than higher per capita spending is what New Trier, Naperville and Geneva schools provide: middle-class environments.”
Ok, Logistics first. Naperville from Chicago is (on a good day) 50 minutes one way. Geneva is just a little less than 90 minutes one way. Now, you could send everybody back & forth by METRA - not a perfect solution, would have to have train station pickup, but workable. But that’s assuming METRA buys in, because you’ve got to substantially increase rolling stock capacity.
But as a bigger issue: This might be great for those unfortunate CPS students, but does the money come with them? Or is this going to be another case of the CPS foisting off the educational responsibility onto somebody else, while only giving up nominal, if any resources.
I would imagine that Mayor Daley would be in favor of this, because one of the biggest winners would be the City of Chicago, with all it’s TIF districts. If those TIF districts don’t exist, all those TIF dollars from the accumulated “TIF Increment” value would flow to the parent tax districts, with the majority of the money going back to the local school districts.
But if you foist off the educational responsibility out of CPS onto suburban school districts, well, City of Chicago is home free with their TIF slush funds. While the locals out in the suburbs get to pick up the tab for CPS failures.
It’s called making your problems into somebody else’s problems.
Comment by Judgment Day Is On The Way Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 11:58 am
In chicago wouldnt it be ELing? They could try it just for the EL of it.
Comment by Ghost Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 12:02 pm
what reallllly happened to all the millions of dollars given to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge? couldn,t Sen. Meeks ask Mr. Obama for some of that money ? why are all the answers to political questions written on the backs of one hundred dollar bills?
Comment by call it Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 12:59 pm
I looked on my milk carton this morning and thought I saw suburban legislators like Karen May, Susan Garrett, Jeff Schoenberg, and Terry Link, because they are mia on this debate. It’s pretty ridiculous that the suburbs are being bashed and targeted like this as the cause of other communities failure and it would be nice if these guys pretended like they represented us rather then the unions or their party.
I am also curious as to why we haven’t heard from Andy McKenna, reportedly my state party leader who happens to come from New Trier, where people may disagree with the fact that their kids educations should be short changed now for the failure of democratic leaders elsewhere.
Comment by shorefan Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 1:10 pm
hey Rich - take a quick look at your block quotes - the same graphs appears in two blocks
Comment by BannedForLife Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 1:55 pm
I don’t think the answer is busing, instead how about a plan like Section 8 housing vouchers, BUT limiting them to only being used in areas with good schools (using NCLB metrics) and limiting the number of families that can use them in any one community so that these voucher holders could only make up less than 3% of the student population. Maybe put a requirement on it that all students in the voucher household must maintain a C average in order for the voucher to be renewed. With those kinds of limits, I can’t imagine the suburbs would be all that opposed. It would me more expensive than section 8 though as rental rates in good school districts are higher than the typical section 8 voucher can afford.
Comment by cermak_rd Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 2:52 pm
People already have the right to go to any school they choose. If they want to attend a school outside their regular school district, they get to pay out of district tuition. It is their choice.
Comment by Huh? Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 3:16 pm
Shorefan makes a good point.
If some one wants to carry the suit further, they ought to foia every line item of EVERY CPS account.
Here is what they would find. The funding disparities INSIDE CPS are probably as great or greater than that between New Trier (16K) and CPS CPS (10-12 K)
Compare a CPS magnet school’s internal budget (and the bureaucratic overhead applied to it) to one of the neglected schools of similar size in a “bad neighborhood.”
Maybe the parents of the poor kids have a cause of action against the magnet school.
All of this exposes the idiocy of a “district” The fact that Chicago is one district, as a decision made for the purposes of political clout.
Rational nations fund children, not arbitrary and/or politically driven bureaucracies. If Sweden and New Zealand can do it, then so can Illinois.
Comment by Bruno Behrend Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 4:45 pm
Maybe just maybe those after school programs that Ricky Hendon’s friends are stealing the money from could have made a differnce and helped these poor kids not become a political pawn in a Rev’s attempt to get some TV time.
Comment by fed up Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 5:47 pm
Bruno,
actually those magnet and selective enrollment schools tend to get less money from CPS. They raise money from parents’ groups to make up the difference, but they get less tax money. The selectives also start with a set of kids that are already at standards, so they don’t have to catch them up via remedial programs etc. They also tend to have lower security costs as they are the few schools that are not majority poor (they tend to be around 35% low income). They also have less sped students, though higher than most suburban school districts.
Comment by cermak_rd Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 9:43 pm
How about schools open them up to this form of school choice? If New Trier wants to allow CPS students in, they recruit or admit/deny students who apply. The difference between this proposal and traditional vouchers is that these suburban schools are not hurting as much for money. It would be similar and give kids who want (parents want them) to succeed a chance at a better/safer school
Comment by Wumpus Friday, Aug 22, 08 @ 11:36 pm