Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for July 11, 2007 SCHOOL FUNDING REFORM

Can advocates pull out a win in overtime?

From the Peoria Journal Star...

Without budget resolution, funding concerns raised

By Adriana Colindres
of GateHouse News Service

Early in 2007, various lawmakers and other people with close ties to education declared confidently: This will be the year for school funding reform in Illinois.

"I think the political will is there," state Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago, said at a Feb. 8 news conference spotlighting identical pieces of legislation that he and Rep. David Miller, D-Lynwood, were sponsoring. Senate Bill 750 and House Bill 750 aimed to help schools and included provisions to raise Illinois' individual and corporate income tax rates, expand the state sales tax to cover consumer services and provide property tax relief.

Meeks wasn't alone in his optimism, which was noteworthy because lawmakers for years have debated overhauling the state's school funding system, yet they have been unable to agree on what to do.

That's still the case in July 2007, as the General Assembly heads into a second month of legislative overtime. The scheduled adjournment date was May 31.

It still might be the year for reform, said state Sen. Kimberly Lightford, a Maywood Democrat who chairs the Senate Education Committee.

She has been working for the past few weeks on a new legislative proposal still being drafted outlining more than a dozen initiatives, such as increasing per-pupil spending to $6,058, up from $5,334, and authorizing "merit pay" for teachers if school districts and teacher unions agree to it.

The plan's price tag is $1.5 billion, she said, and much of the funding would come from an expansion of Illinois' gambling industry.

The heads of two teachers' unions, the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, also think lawmakers still could address school funding before they close the book on the 2007 spring legislative session.

IEA President Ken Swanson said: "This is a decades-old problem now that has reached an absolute crisis stage in this state. We can't wait any longer."

Swanson and Ed Geppert, who just resigned his seat on the Illinois State Board of Education to take over as IFT president, said one of the stumbling blocks for school funding reform this year has been the state's electric rate crisis.

Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, believes the main reason for the lack of movement on school funding this year is Gov. Rod Blagojevich's pledge against hiking income and sales taxes, "coupled with the big distraction over the gross- receipts tax and health care."

Martire said that a frequently repeated misconception in the media "is that this is all about money and that the reform community just wants money, money, money, money."

That is incorrect, he said, citing research that shows Illinois falls $2 billion short on the amount of money needed to provide a "quality education in an efficiently operated school district."

"What has been developed is a school funding reform tied to changing test scores, tied to academic achievement," Martire added. "We've never had that before."

But not everybody thinks the legislature needs to revamp school funding this year.

"If you show me that money will make a difference, and not just on the margins but will really change the system and improve it, I think most of my members would say more money is a good thing to jump up and down about," said Jeff Mays, president of the Illinois Business Roundtable. That organization examines various state issues, including education and economic growth.

"We don't want to see education measured in dollars," added Mays, a former state lawmaker who served in the 1980s. "We want to see it measured in results."

Nevertheless, various self-described education advocates plan to keep pushing for school funding reform.

"It's our obligation as advocates to encourage our own groups, as well as the political leaders, to keep the conversation alive," said Jerry Stermer, president of Voices for Illinois Children. "As long as we're in session, I believe we have hope that something very significant can come."