Tuesday
October 07, 2008
by Cheryl Chapman and Sonya Collins
On September 30, 2008 we both attended the House Education Committee budget hearing in South Holland. Among the people offering testimony to the committee were people from A+ Illinois, the Illinois PTA; The Illinois Education Association; Ralph Martire; Voices for Illinois Children students, school teachers, staff and administrators, and members of the general public. A solid majority of the speakers made the case that our Illinois schools are underfunded at the foundation level. They further stated that the inequities between schools are unethical. The current property tax funding system may keep education under local control, but it insures that a child’s zip code determines the quality of the that child’s schools.
Sonya spoke to the hearing about her own experiences with the inequities in school funding. She pointed out that she was a product of the CPS system, a graduate of the University of Chicago, Concordia University and now a doctorate student at Roosevelt University. She described to the panel how two summers ago she held back tears as she walked into the computer lab of a high school in Naperville, Illinois. There for professional development, she was amazed by the seemingly unlimited resources available to students there. She was also hurt to realize that Illinois schools are still separate and unequal!
We all know that property in poor and middle income areas cannot generate enough revenue to fund education. Likewise the state’s over-reliance on property taxes is what has caused this great inequality in school funding. The State must provide more money for school funding. The national average is for states to cover 50% of education costs. Currently, Illinois provides just 32%. Even though the government can provide some funding, it is clear that we must increase the state’s portion to at least 50% to try and reduce the disparities between poor and wealthy areas and bring the school funding formula closer to the national average. A state-wide tax reform is necessary to reform school funding—we cannot continue to rely on the local tax base. Likewise we need to increase income tax rates for individuals, corporations and expand the state sales tax base. Doing so could generate almost 9 billion dollars in new revenue. Surely if Henry Paulson can request and practically demand 700 billion dollars to bailout Wall Street, we can work together to supply the monies necessary to provide all children with an adequate education.
It was pointed out to the Committee that research shows the correlations between student achievement and school funding. Sonya specifically asked the Committee to tell the 3100 students in her Dolton school district that the quality of their education won’t continue to be determined by the wealth of the community where they live and that Illinois politicians understand that they must overcome enormous odds to obtain an education. She prevailed upon the legislators to not fear about their re-election chances because SB2288 increases taxes. According to a poll by Associated Press, 61% of Illinois voters will support a tax increase that improves education.
Golden Apple along with National Louis University co-sponsored community forums on education funding one year ago, and each year we hope that “this will be the year!” So far, that year has never arrived. Many people spoke in favor of Senate Bill 2288. All of the speakers were well-received by the committee, and they promised to educate their fellow House members. Hopefully more of us in the TEN community will continue to inform ourselves and people in our educational communities about the very important issue of educational funding, especially the most-echoed issue of the evening: How do we move forward?
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