Progress Illinois

Two weeks ago, state lawmakers wrapped up the fall veto session and headed home with hopes that Illinois' financial crisis wouldn't follow them back to their own districts. So far, the bad budget news has trickled in slowly enough that many have been able to distance themselves from the severity of the state's financial situation. But they won't be able to dodge blame forever. For example, adding millions in school reimbursements to the growing pile of unpaid bills is weighing heavy on cash-strapped districts. And in places like the Central Illinois town of Pekin, the backlog -- coupled with other uncertainties and cutbacks -- is growing too big to sweep under the rug. The Pekin Daily Times explains:

The state has a multi-billion-dollar deficit. Inflation is down so far that school districts are limited in how much they can raise taxes to bring in new revenue. Corporate Personal Property Replacement Taxes and sales taxes are down.

General state aid funding for schools is running three months behind. Programs like special education and transportation will not be funded at the full levels. The state has not yet received an application for additional federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, which was used in lieu of state-generated general state aid payments.

Illinois State Board of Education Chair Jesse Ruiz summed it up best when warned that if the state doesn't generate new revenue for schools next year, "we fall off the cliff."

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Chicago International Charter Schools (CICS) teachers made history last summer by becoming the first charter school employees to unionize in Chicago.  Today, they made it official and ratified their first contract. Teachers at three of CICS' Civitas campuses -- Ralph Ellison, Northtown Academy, and Wrightwood -- have struck a three-year deal. Among the contract highlights are a commitment to cap classroom sizes at 29 and to formalize community and teacher input. Also, the 140 Civitas teachers will see their wages increase over the next three years, their evaluations will be standardized, and staff will have due process in disciplinary or dismissal cases. (Catalyst has a more detailed run-down here.)

When the General Assembly lifted the state's charter cap last June, they cleared the way to doubling the number of outsourced public schools. While Civitas' landmark contract is limited to only three of the dozens of charter schools in Chicago, the expectations for transparency and public input in these institutions -- which rely almost exclusively on tax dollars -- are certain to set a new tone. As Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, sees it, the agreement is a key step in keeping innovation, not cost cutting, as the driver of the privatization model.

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Back in July, we took note of an interesting development in Central Illinois' McLean County where a local school district used a new wind farm to generate desperately-needed education money. Encouragingly, other districts are following suit. Construction on a similar farm straddling neighboring Bureau and Lee counties is moving ahead and school officials already estimate that the 114-acre "Big Sky" project will bring in enough money to bail out a struggling local district. Ohio High School Supt. Sharon Flesher tells the News-Tribune that she estimates an additional $803,000 will flow into her district once the project is complete; another $735,000 will be freed up for local grade schools. That kind of money would double the high school's operating budget.  But Flesher noted that the district won't keep all of the money:

"One of the first things we want to do is reduce taxes in the community. The community has supported this school at a very high tax rate for a long time. This is the board’s way of being responsible and saying thank you,” Flesher explained.

The Big Sky project serves as a reminder of how wind development can provide crucial benefits to rural communities.

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Half of the 2009 fall veto session is now on the books and one legislative priority lawmakers identified before they trekked down to Springfield -- funding for the Monetary Awards Program (MAP) -- has been partially resolved. Yesterday, Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law that gives him the authority to restore second semester funding for the need-based scholarships received by almost 140,000 college students.  Earlier in the year, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission voted to eliminate grants for the entire spring 2010 term when it became clear the General Assembly was going to substantially reduce their budget.

Where that money will come from to reinstate the funding unfortunately remains a mystery.

Legislative leaders decided last week not to approve any new revenue to support ISAC, instead forcing Gov. Quinn to borrow. Specifically, he announced a plan to collect $1 billion from some of the state's roughly 600 "special funds" and devote one-fifth of that cash to the grants. Although the additional money must be repaid to its rightful agencies in 18 months, Quinn could use the windfall for "unmet needs" in the interim, possibly even paying down the state's backlog of medical bills.

Like most economic decisions made in Springfield these days, this "solution" isn't a sustainable one. The way our current tax system is structured, Illinois just doesn't generate enough money to pay for core services (like college aid) and the state's overhanging debt obligations. Until that is reformed, new problems will consistently arise. The Sun-Times drives the point home in an editorial today:

So where does this leave us today? How do we pay for scholarships, Medicare, public education and the rest?

By adopting a new tax system -- one that includes a tax increase and a new approach that places a greater burden on the rich than on the poor. For decades, Illinois has had one of the country's most unfair, regressive tax systems, charging everyone the same rate whether you make $1 million a year or $40,000 a year. [...]

Illinois needs a new tax system -- one that treats lower earners more fairly and generates more income. Until we get it, we'll keep romping in dreamland until the state goes broke.

The evidence that Illinois' education system is riddled with shortcomings just keeps mounting. The latest, the results of last spring's National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math exams, has garnered surprisingly little attention but drives home how inequitable the state's education system has become. For the eighth consecutive year, low-income and minority fourth and eighth graders in Illinois continue to lag far behind their middle- and upper-income and white peers. What's stunning is how wide the gap is. The Tribune has some details:

In fourth-grade, for instance, 18 percent of low-income students were deemed proficient or higher in math compared with 54 percent of other children.  And just 11 percent of African-American students tested at least above the proficient level, compared with 20 percent of their Hispanic classmates and 52 percent of white children.

That's a whopping 36 percent gap (PDF) between poor fourth-graders and their economically-advantaged peers. Unfortunately, eighth-graders didn't fare (PDF) much better; 45 percent of the "haves" proved proficient, compared with 14 percent of the "have-nots." Meanwhile, the gap between black and white students is even wider.

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Back in August, Gov. Pat Quinn dealt a blow to school transparency when he issued an amendatory veto against a bill that would give the public a voice in the rapid privatization of Chicago's schools. The measure, introduced by State Rep. Cynthia Soto (D-Chicago), initially called for a moratorium on school shutdowns, which was spurred by a dozen controversial closures in Chicago last year. But during the legislative process, lawmakers stripped HB 363 of its original intent, opting instead to create a committee that would hold hearings to investigate how and why schools are selected and to make legislative recommendations for shaping the process in the future. Quinn's decision to weaken the measure further -- by giving Mayor Daley more power to stack the committee with sympathetic appointees and to push its deadline back by five months, well after this year's school closures will have been decided -- blindsided Soto. Yet the decision made perfect political sense for Quinn, according to State School News Service's Jim Broadway. "The issue has the makings," he writes, "of a significant political resource for Quinn in the Democrat primary in February."

From the time Quinn inked the bill, Soto vowed to override his veto. And yesterday she succeeded. But the delay will have consequences. Julie Woestehoff, director of the education advocacy group Parents United for a Responsible Education (PURE) notes that the October 31 deadline could strain the potential committee in charge of the review:

Since we have to assume that the committee has not yet been named or officially appointed, it's very hard to see how anything helpful can be done by the end of the month.  Even if someone has already been writing the not-yet-existing committee's report, that tight timeline does not allow for any meaningful public input, which is a key element of the bill.

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Back in Springfield for the fall veto session, state lawmakers made measured progress yesterday on some legislative priorities we've been tracking for months. Here's a brief rundown of what transpired:

Campaign Finance Reform

The big news was that a House committee approved a revised version of the ethics package vetoed by Gov. Pat Quinn in late August. This bill (SB 1466), introduced by House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), covers much of the same ground as HB 7. It also applies campaign contribution limits -- $5,000 from individuals; $10,000 from corporations, labor organizations and associations; and $50,000 from political action committees or other candidates -- to the election cycle rather than the calendar year, an improvement designed to protect challengers who don't file until close to the election date.

But Madigan did make one major, self-serving change that has reformers up in arms.  He stripped the $90,000 cap from party and legislative leader campaign committees to candidates, allowing himself to continue directing unlimited resources to his preferred candidates.

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We've been following the ongoing effort to restore funding for the Monetary Assistance Program (MAP), which provides college aid to needy Illinois students but was reduced by 50 percent in the state budget passed in July.  The AP has some good news out of Springfield this afternoon:

Lawmakers emerging from a meeting with Gov. Pat Quinn say they agreed to appropriate an extra $200 million for the Monetary Award Program. But they said they haven't figured out where to get the money.   [...]

Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, says the General Assemblly will appropriate $200 milllion to help 137,000 students pay tuition. But he acknowledged it will be next spring until they determine how to pay it. 

This is a strange little news item.  After all the talk in recent weeks of different proposals to fund the program, the leaders simply decided to reappropriate the missing $200 million with the hope of finding a way to cover the cost next spring.  Still, it's got to be a relief to the numerous students who depend on the program.

Late last month, university officials went public with their appeal to state lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn to restore college aid through the Monetary Award Program (MAP). As regular readers know, 138,000 Illinois college students are currently in the lurch waiting to see if the need-based grants -- funding for which was cut by half this year -- will be restored before second semester begin in January. Considering that 75 percent of MAP recipients come from families making $40,000 or less a year, the loss could force thousands to drop out. That could cause big problems for colleges and universities, particularly private institutions, who could lose millions in tuition, loans, and scholarship money as a result. The Sun-Times explores the impact:

With few exceptions, schools will ask students to take more loans, work longer hours in outside jobs or find the money other ways. The hope is that some students will be able to stay enrolled.

But if students leave, "that from an institutional standpoint is a complete loss,'' [Dave Tretter, president of the Federation of Independent Illinois Colleges and Universities] said, particularly because many private schools rely on tuition for a larger share of their operating costs. "They are not going to be bringing their federal aid. They are not going to be bringing loan dollars. ... It wouldn't be a stretch to say that some schools will have a hard time making it.''

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Speaking off the cuff, then-State Senate President Emil Jones said back in 2006 that "dropping out of high school was an apprenticeship for prison.” A Chicago-based education organization commissioned some research on the claim. And after combing through recent census data, the Alternative Schools Network (ASN) reports (PDF) that youth who dropout of high school are actually 63 times more likely to end up behind bars or in a state institution than their peers who graduate from college. Not surprisingly, young black male dropouts between the ages of 16 and 24 are disproportionately affected -- a stunning 23 percent wind up in prison, compared with between 6 to 7 percent for Asians, Hispanics, and whites.

We've highlighted report after report about Illinois' growing student achievement gap, which has become one of the worst in the nation. The high school dropout problem is an equally disturbing trend. In Chicago, for example, more African-American males leave school (55 percent) than graduate (40 percent). Statewide, the dropout rate hovers around 30 percent. As ASN's Jack Wuest told WBEZ, this is contributing to the youth violent that has been making headlines as of late:

If you look at the people who don't commit violence who are young people, they're the ones who are engulfed in the good schools and relatively good communities, those kind of conditions help prevent youth violence and we need to build the communities with decent jobs for the adults.

By continually failing to reach even basic school funding targets, Illinois lawmakers have contributed to the problem.

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