Dazed and Confused

What a croc of BS. I COULD send my kids to the school down the street from me. Kids who attend Chicago public schools often graduate not being able to read (my 6 year old CAN). Gang bangers hang out in front of the school. And even though my diverse neighborhood is primarily caucasian, the school is like 85% black...not exactly a model of "diversity". So now we spend $7k per kid for Catholic parochial school, not exactly my first choice (jeez, I am a protestant) If the public schools were WORTH it, I wouldn't MIND paying a bit more. But right now these schools are rest areas on the way to jail.

Until we STOP paying administrators $300k per year and we STOP needing gun toting police to patrol grammar school hallways ....PRIVATIZE !!!!!!

Chicago Trib 4/13/05

Seeing red over school funding

Published April 13, 2005

Clad in red, hundreds of teachers are set to descend on the state Capitol on Wednesday to lobby for more state funding for schools. They're going to try to pressure Gov. Rod Blagojevich and legislators to support an income tax hike for education.

There's no question that classroom education in the state has felt a squeeze, resulting in fewer AP classes, fewer sports activities, cuts in art instruction and bulging class sizes. Each loss is disheartening. Together, they constitute a gradual march toward educational mediocrity.

Yet there's a disconnect here. Last week, Chicago-area voters defeated about two-thirds of the referendum proposals that asked people to increase property taxes to help their own schools.

One big reason: Many voters don't trust the state and the schools to spend the money wisely.

Now consider this: Many of those red-clad educators demanding more money for schools are lobbying just as hard against state pension reforms that would free up hundreds of millions of education dollars. That money could be spent to reduce class sizes, expand art and foreign language instruction, lengthen school days and attract better teachers with higher pay.

Blagojevich has recognized that the pension systems are going to break the state, and he has moved for reasonable changes. One of those changes would curtail the practice of school districts slipping huge end-of-career salary increases to teachers and principals that let them qualify for much higher pensions--which the state has to pay.

But the education lobby refuses to budge on this. And so long as they refuse to budge on pension reform, taxpayers will have a hard time sympathizing with the fiscal calamity that they describe in the classroom.

There are other reasons for voters to be suspicious. Take a look at surrounding states. Missouri has 524 public school districts; Iowa, 370; Wisconsin, 426; Indiana, 294.

Illinois has a whopping 881 school districts.

Remember that each district usually comes with a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, a principal and an assistant principal. And that's just for starters. Some of those administrators are making big salaries--up to $300,000 a year--and working up similarly astounding pensions. Now consider that almost half of those 881 districts have fewer than 150 students. It's no wonder voters start acting grumpy at the prospect of a tax increase.

Imagine how classroom spending might be boosted if Illinois consolidated school districts and cut administrative overhead to be more in line with neighboring states.

A proposal in Arizona would mandate that at least 65 percent of every school district's operational budget be spent in the classroom. This is going to a statewide referendum. It's a simple idea, yet so radical that it could push hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on students.

Advocates of the Arizona proposal calculate that Illinois spends only 59.5 percent of its operational budget inside classrooms, and that upping that to 65 percent would translate to $906 million more for things like teacher salaries, computers and supplies.

Such ideas reflexively make educators see a different kind of red. But if they want to win a debate on school funding and tax reform, they need to instill more confidence that the money will be spent where it's needed most: on students.