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If not us, who? If not now, when?
Politicians ranging from
Michigan Governor George
Romney in 1963 to President
Ronald Reagan in 1981 and
President Barak Obama have
invoked the quote
“If not us,
who? If not now, when?”
to
advance important but difficult
and controversial social/political
agendas. I think the quote is
appropriate today for the cause
of changing the state’s
inequitable funding formula.
It would be difficult to find anyone with a
conscience and any knowledge of the subject to
defend the current formula that was devised almost
20 years ago. In six of the past seven years, we have
had disinvestment and “proration” of General State
Aid – cuts that most adversely affect districts that rely
the most on state aid because they don’t have high
capacity property tax bases.
In recent years, there have been two significant
attempts to reform the way public schools are funded
in Illinois. The most visible has been the relentless
effort of Senator Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill), who
has spent most of the last two years of his public life
trying to get input and support from stakeholders all
over the state. His quote:
“A child’s access to a
quality education should not be determined by their
zip code”
has become the mantra of this movement.
Manar’s latest plan, Senate Bill 231, has passed
the Senate but could face a tough hurdle in the
House. Of course, there is always the potential that
the House could produce its own plan to fund schools
for FY 17.
Behind the scenes, another movement has been
taking place the past three years that has included
administrators, business officials, principals, school
board representatives and other educators. It is
called Vision 20/20 and one of its four main pillars is
titled “Equitable and Adequate Funding.” That pillar’s
basic concept is the Illinois Evidence-Based School
Funding Model, which is the topic of this month’s
cover story that starts on Page 5. I urge you to read it
and consider its benefits to public education -- most
notably equity based on adequacy.
IASA has remained neutral on Manar’s bill
because while we completely agree with its goal of
directing the greatest percentage of new state
funding to the neediest school districts, we don’t
agree with taking funding away from other districts.
One of the changes to this version of Manar’s
proposal is a “hold harmless” guarantee for the first
year, but it is then phased out over four years.
The evidence-based plan would lock in the FY16
or FY17 numbers to create a Base Funding
Guarantee for each district, and then would direct 99
percent of any new education funding to the schools
furthest from each district’s adequacy standard.
Conversely, it would protect those neediest schools if
the state ever again decided to cut funding to
education. Those precepts would seem to be similar
to Senator Manar’s approach.
The plan does require more of an investment in
public education by the state, but after seven years of
underfunding it is crucial for the social and economic
well-being of our state to invest more heavily in public
education so that conditions can exist making a high
quality education accessible to all students.
The common ground between Sen. Marnar’s and
the evidence-based plan provides a pathway to
merge the best elements of both into something to
provide immediate relief to districts most adversely
affected while respecting the local taxpayer
contributions of high capacity property tax districts.
No district needs to lose state funding, but a high
percentage of new education dollars should be
focused on districts in need. No matter what is
adopted for FY 17, the evidence-based plan could
plug in behind that to provide a plan for public
education.
For the first time in nearly 20 years, we have the
opportunity to change the public education landscape
in Illinois. There is a viable conduit forward for
legislators from both sides of the political aisle and
others that are interested in a long-term, purposeful
solution so that we don’t lose a generation of
students. The problem is that changing the status
quo is unbelievably difficult in Springfield. The closer
you get to actual reform that is meaningful, the
stronger the resistance and the harder it gets. We will
overcome this obstacle.
We live in the fifth-largest state in the nation, and
we have plenty of resources if we will just tap into
them. There has to be a way to give children from low
-income and middle-class communities a reasonable
chance to get a quality education – a “hand up”
instead of a “handout.” If you want to talk about
Return on Investment for communities and for the
state, nothing else comes close to preparing all of our
children for college and careers in the 21
st
century. It
should be Priority One.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Message from the
Executive Director
Dr. Brent Clark
Brent