Progress Illinois

Forget the one-size-fits-all approach. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) officials have announced they're preparing to open a whole new slate of niche schools next year under the reform initiative Renaissance 2010.

Most will aim to prepare students, particularly high schoolers, for specific industries and trades -- from hospitality to technology to health sciences. Others, like the "gay-friendly" Pride Campus, hope to create an environment where students can learn at ease.

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As state lawmakers head back to back to Springfield Monday for an overtime session to tackle ethics reform, Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan said they ought to add one more thing their to-do list: Take responsibility for funding public schools.

The Chi-Town Daily News reports that on Thursday Duncan called on state legislators to approve a “modest income tax hike” to generate more money for education:

“Keep it simple,“ Duncan said at a hearing in Oak Park convened by the Illinois House of Representatives Elementary & Secondary Education Committee. “We cannot solve every problem facing the state with a single new revenue source. Focus first on education and capital -- kids and jobs. Once we address these issues, Illinois can tackle other issues.“

City officials, in July, decided against raising property taxes on behalf of CPS. Instead, they opted to pull $100 million from reserve accounts to get the cash-strapped system through the current school year.

Duncan's voice adds depth to State Sen. James Meeks' recent calls for state officials to make reforming the school funding system a top priority.

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There's a strain of thought among some conservative education reformers that goes like this: because a complex set of factors (including social and economic disadvantage, teacher quality, and parental involvement) cause disparities in achievement between students in poor and wealthy districts, education funding reform isn't the cure-all to our the nation's achievement gap. Thus, we shouldn't spend much of our political capital addressing funding inequities. Instead, more vouchers!

Of course, it's absolutely true that equal funding doesn't erase the acheivement gap on its own. But that doesn't mean money doesn't matter. A new study released (PDF) by the Illinois-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability divides schools into three distinct categories based on their local property wealth:

- "Flat Grant" districts, which have the greatest amount of available local property wealth.
- "Alternative Formula" districts, which have the second greatest amount of available property wealth.
- "Foundation Formula" districts, which have available local property wealth that ranges from very low to just above average.

And what does the research show? Academic performance -- measured by data from the Illinois State Achievement Test -- is "strongly correlated" with mild increases (between $1,000-$2,200) in spending on instruction. The academic growth is evident in both school districts with low poverty (3-8 percent low income rates) and significant poverty (27-32 percent low income rates).

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On WTTW's Chicago Tonight last Friday, CBS2 political reporter Mike Flannery laid into John McCain's recent ad suggesting that Barack Obama supports kindergarteners "learning about sex before learning to read."  Flannery called the ad "disgraceful" and one of several "atrociously, grotesquely misrepresentative ads that the McCain camp has been running."  Flannery added that the sex-ed spot "takes some of the sheen of the McCain 'man of honor' thing" and said it's an example of "overreaching on the part of the Republicans that they're going to regret." Watch it:

The Tribune's Eric Zorn has a good rundown of the "brazen inaccuracies" in McCain's sex-ed ad, as well as a compendium of other commentary on the topic.

Fresh off his first national appearance in Denver, Alexi Giannoulias is back on the grind. Today, the state treasurer will unveil a new bill that would restrict credit card companies from providing gifts to college students who fill out a credit card application:

"Basically we want to limit the ability of credit card companies who prey on college students," Giannoulias said. "Unfortunately this can lead to serious long-term debt for students and their families."

The credit card industry hoodwinks consumers of all ages and income levels, but its aggressive efforts to sign up overburdened and financially naive students is arguably its most insidious marketing strategy. With college tuition and living expenses skyrocketing, marketers convince students of the flexibility credit cards allow, then offer them accounts with high interest rates and never-ending fees. It's no surprise that two-thirds of college students have at least one card and the average student will graduate with more than $2,600 in credit card debt, according to a recent U.S. Public Interest Research Groups survey.

The bill won't curtail exclusive agreements in which card companies and banks pay millions of dollars to schools or alumni associations for preferential treatment with their card-marketing efforts, but it's a step in the right direction.

Image used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user pladys.

Here's a bit of cool news from last week. The Greater Lawndale Little Village School for Social Justice has submitted a proposal to the Chicago Public Schools to open LGBTQA high school within the city's borders:

The Greater Lawndale Little Village School for Social Justice submitted the proposal to the CPS Office of New Schools for a Social Justice High School-Pride Campus. This project has been in the works since spring of this year. If approved, Pride Campus, a voluntary public high school that would implement a college prep curriculum in all subject areas, would open in 2010. It would serve LGBTQA ( lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, questioning and allied ) students from all over the city.

If opened, the school will follow the model of the Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan: while open to all, it was built as a safe haven for LGBTQA students, especially those who have experienced extreme levels of violence and harassment. Bill Greaves, a member of the proposed school's design team, told the Windy City Times that a location has yet to be chosen, but he hopes it will be centrally located, allowing easy access for students city-wide.

CPS will hold a community hearing on Sept. 18 at the Center on Halsted (3656 N. Halsted) before announcing its decision by the end of October. I've seen up close the outstanding work teachers and the faculty do at the social justice branch of LVLHS, so this is a project I plan to keep an eye on.

(H/T Gapers Block)

In her solid recap of the Chicago schools boycott in the Washington Post , Chicago-based reporter Kari Lydersen makes two key insights into what's driving the push for reform. Here's the first:

The nonprofit Education Trust calculates that although the average gap in per-pupil spending across the country between high-income districts and low-income ones was $938 in 2005, the gap was $2,235 in Illinois. Only New York had a larger gap that year.

While the disparity between Chicago districts and its neighboring suburbs is stark -- both economically and spatially -- unequal education funding doesn't just affect city residents; resources aren't distributed equitably to students downstate or in poor suburbs either.

This next point is equally crucial:

A recent analysis by the nonprofit Chicago-based Community Renewal Society found that statewide, lower-income districts have voted for higher property tax rates than wealthier areas, but the resulting funds raised for schools are still inadequate because property values are lower.

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It's well-known that Illinois' education funding system creates widespread inequities due to a heavy dependence on property tax revenue. But how large are the gaps? The Chicago Reporter waded through the finances of 857 elementary, high school, and unit districts and found substantial discrepancies. From the report:

- Due to the primary reliance on local property tax revenue for school funding, there are massive cumulative gaps in per-pupil spending, particularly in poor or minority communities. The 6,413 students who started elementary school in Evanston in 1994 and graduated from high school in 2007 had about $290 million more spent on their education than the same number of Chicago Public Schools students.

- The percentage of state contribution to school funding has decreased four of the last five years and is one of the lowest in the nation.

Compiled on Excel spreadsheets, the Reporter has also provided fascinating comparison data for high school districts (4-year data), elementary and unit districts (9-year data), contributions from local, state and federal governments, and schools in 10 communities within the six-county region. With the reform movement picking up steam, this should be required reading.

For more on education funding, take a look at our posts here and here, as well as Will Burns' Progress Illinois column.

The latest salvo in the movement to reform school funding in Illinois came today as the Chicago Urban League filed a civil rights lawsuit against the state and the Illinois Board of Education.  The suit argues that the property tax-based funding system is unconstitutional.  From the complaint (PDF):

At the core of the State's school funding system is an over-reliance on local property taxes.  This over-reliance on locally raised revenues reinforces past discrimination and virtually ensures that in communities where property wealth has been negatively impacted by patterns of residential segretation, the school districts have no capacity to raise the revenues they desperately need to close the funding gap.  Compared to other states, Illinois' property taxpayers contribute the third-highest share of education costs, at 62 percent, and pay the 10th highest dollar amount towards school funding. [...]

The continuous and unmitigated harm that results each year from the State's persistent failure to meet its constitutional obligation to treat all students equally, regardless of race or ethnicity, to provide all Illinois students with access to equal educational opportunity and to provide a system of schools offering a "high quality" education, is irreparable and unsconscionable.  Plaintiffs therefore seek preliminary and permanent injunctive relief on the grounds that the State's school funding scheme, as presently enforced and applied across the State, violates the Illinois Civil Rights Act and the basic rights guaranteed to all State citizens under the Illinois Constitituion.

The Urban League held a press conference today to announce the suit.  Below is a brief clip from NBC5 featuring Urban League president Cheryle Jackson, State Sen. James Meeks, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan:

On WTTW's Chicago Tonight yesterday, Center for Tax and Budget Accountability executive director Ralph Martire discussed the school funding crisis in Illinois and expressed his support for State Sen. James Meeks' effort to highlight the issue.  "We've got to get people as outraged about the fact that for decades we haven't given children an adequate education in our state," he said.  "And when they get the same fervor and outrage over that that they have over this silly day of missed school, maybe we'll make a change."

Talking about the tax code's effect on the state's fiscal situation, Martire also pointed out that "Illinois has got a $600 billion economy -- $600 billion.  The cost of the tax increase needed to fix our problems would be about $6 billion.  That's one percent of our economy."  Watch it:

For more on the education funding issue, check out Will Burns' column from last week.