Chicago schools: reform to come but no money

Photo by Ken Burnette Senate Minority Leader James "Pate" Philip, at left, makes a point with Senate President Philip J. Rock during debate on Chicago school reform.

Few doubted that the General Assembly would pass Chicago school reform legislation this spring. The schools that U.S. Secy. of Education William Bennett labeled the country's worst embarrassed all. Parents were fed up. Politicians promised change.

When the General Assembly went home, the bill lawmakers had passed was touted as the most radical undertaken anywhere. It will do nothing, however, for the children of Chicago public schools this year. What it does in the future will depend upon parents and teachers. The measure deals with governance and structure. The reform bill was about power. It has taken power from the Chicago Board of Education and given it to local school councils elected at each of Chicago's 595 schools.

Whether schools get better will depend upon councils that consist of six parents, two community members, two teachers —all elected by those groups — and the principal. The councils can hire a principal, approve portions of the budget, recommend textbooks and advise the principal. S.B. 1839, as passed by lawmakers and before a promised gubernatorial amendatory veto set for September 26, provides that:

• The size of the central administration be reduced.
• Mayoral appointment of the Chicago Board of Education continue.
• A school reform oversight authority consisting of four members appointed by the mayor and three by the governor oversee the reform effort.
• The time allowed for improvement by a teacher found doing unsatisfactory work be reduced from one year to 45 days.

The local school councils got the power, but the schools got no more money this year. House Speaker Michael J. Madigan decreed that school reform this year had to be revenue neutral. No new money meant no new programs, programs that some said must be included in true school reform.

There was no shortage of interest in Chicago school reform. Parent outrage that followed the 19-day strike last fall persisted. The late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington reconvened his Education Summit, but the process of bringing parents, business, teachers and the Board of Education together was a lengthy one. By April 28, when the summit finally reached agreement on its package, individual groups had already introduced their own bills. There would not be a single bill coming from the summit.

In Springfield lawmakers came up with four separate bills, one from each party in each House:

• The Senate Republican plan, S.B. 2261, sponsored by Sen. Bob Kustra (R-28, DesPlaines) called for creation of 20 subdistricts within the Chicago school system, each with elected boards and each with the powers of downstate school boards.
• The Senate Democratic initiative, S.B. 1839, sponsored by Sen. Arthur L. Berman (D-2, Chicago), allowed local school councils at each school to nominate candidates for principal, to reject the hiring of a principal and to approve much of the budget.
• The House Republican Policy Committee plan called for breaking up the Chicago school district into six districts run by seven-member elected boards of education.
• The House Democratic plan called for school management councils at each of the city's school buildings, with the authority to hire principals and spend some money. The plan had a unique approach to parent involvement. Businesses were required to allow parents time off to pick up their children's report cards. And failure to pick up report cards could constitute child neglect.

The summit had failed to produce a single plan. Instead there were four, for a short time. Kustra's plan passed the Senate with 41 votes but died in the House Rules Committee. Berman's bill passed and was sent over to the House on June 2. In the House the Republican plan was defeated and the Democratic plan readied for passage.

Gov. James R. Thompson moved at the first summit of legislative leaders on June 16 to address Chicago school reform and a tax increase on parallel tracks. Thompson announced that three members of each caucus in each chamber would meet with Deputy Gov. James Reilly to talk about Chicago school reform, while the leaders talked about a tax increase.

Reilly's group never got very far. The group was preempted by Madigan who called together his members, Berman and the Chicago groups pushing school reform. On June 23, following an all-day session in his office with the Chicago reform groups, Madigan announced agreement in principle on the bill that eventually passed. "[There are] radical changes in Illinois law that would provide for more citizen involvement in decisionmaking in the Chicago system than have existed in my lifetime, and I think that holds the best hope for improving the quality of the Chicago school system," Madigan said.

The groups that came into Madigan's sessions came at a price. There was to be no talk of tax increases, and any reform plan would be revenue neutral. On June 28 there was a brief protest. One of the

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Photo by Ken Burnette Sen. Arthur L. Berman

Chicago groups, The Campaign for School Reform, decried Madigan's move to block a tax increase, claiming that $116 million was needed for early childhood and teacher training programs and for reduction in class sizes. But the group would not withhold its support from the bill because of lack of funding. Ted Oppenheimer, executive director of the Citizens' Schools Committee, said he felt between a rock and a hard place: "I think that Speaker Madigan has been very clever. He's giving us something with one hand which is very enticing. We've never been in a situation like this, all of us getting together in the same room and getting a chance to work with legislators and developing legislation, legislation that we feel is important. And yet we're not getting the money. He's not even letting us talk about the money. . . . We feel in a way like pawns, at least I do. . . . And in uncoupling [a tax increase and school reform], to have to choose one or the other is sort of a Sophie's choice."

No one pulled out. The sessions in Madigan's office continued until agreement in principle became agreement on a bill. All that was left was passage. Chicago school reform came up in the Senate at 10:20 p.m. on June 30. Supporters needed 30 votes. There are 31 Democratic senators and two Republican senators from Chicago. But two Senate Democrats were ill. Berman asked for support of a bill that represented thousands of hours of work by legislators, staff and concerned citizens of Chicago. Kustra charged that it did a better job of protecting entrenched interests than reforming the schools. The measure got 29 aye votes, a single no, and saw 26 senators voting present. Supporters cheered, briefly, in the galleries. Then they were told they had lost.

Chicago school reform would go into overtime. After June 30 an extraordinary, three-fifths majority would be needed to pass any legislation. That strengthened the hand of the Republicans, who felt they had been shut out of the whole process. On July 1 there was a round of conferences among the leaders. Compromises were reached making the seventh appointment to the oversight board a joint one by the mayor and governor and limiting seniority for teachers who lost their jobs because of declining enrollments. The Chicago Teachers' Union and the city balked. Sen. President Philip J. Rock (D-8, Oak Park) and Madigan got turned down in their caucuses that night.

The next morning Rock and Madigan decided to move the bill in its original form, with a delayed effective date until July 1, 1989. That move would drop from 36 to 30 the number of votes required in the Senate. Republicans protested that their agreements had been broken. When it came up for a vote on July 2, Sen. Berman told lawmakers, "This makes a substantial shift of power from the central administration on Pershing Road down to the local school." Kustra was unimpressed. "I hear and see adults protecting the backsides of adults," he said. The bill passed. It cleared the House too.

Afterwards Rock and Madigan blamed the Republicans for the need to delay the package for a year. They pledged to pass legislation in January, when only 30 votes will be needed to move up the effective date. The neighborhood groups praised Madigan. They were less kind to Republicans. Coretta McFerren, a school reform activist, detailed the opposition to the failed July 1 compromise: "The Republican Senate and House entered provisions that hurt the blacks. For example, our mayor is black. The Republicans in the House and Senate want to take power away from the black mayor. That's not fair. That's not right."

Supporters declared victory and lawmakers went home. Arguments over power continued. On August 31 Thompson announced that he would use his amendatory veto to rewrite S.B. 1839 to provide, among other things, for joint appointment by the mayor and governor of the seventh oversight authority member and elimination of job guarantees for tenured teachers whose positions are cut by declining enrollment.

Thompson's revival of once rejected issues set up a potential confrontation over the amendatory veto. Madigan, who claims that Thompson abuses this power, threatens to send all such vetoes to the House Rules Committee to determine whether they are proper. Meanwhile, Madigan said that he would reconvene the groups that drafted the bill before deciding how to proceed. Thompson needs majority votes to sustain his rewrites. Opponents need three-fifths votes to override them. And if the Rules Committee decides Thompson went too far and holds the bill, it dies.

Assessing the pre-veto bill, State Supt. of Education Ted Sanders calls it less than, but needed for, reform. "This is not basically an education bill. It's a governance bill. It's a power bill." Sanders says that reform has to include questions of reducing class size and providing money for early childhood programs, issues that could not be included because of Madigan's insistance that the bill be revenue neutral.

Sanders also sees a need to have some way to address district-wide needs, like early childhood education: "There ought to be some provision for establishing and seeing allocations to overarching priorities, and the way the bill is structured right now it moves that decisionmaking authority to the local school council so that the larger total district priorities could never be addressed."

Sanders says Chicago school children will wait a bit before they see benefits from the reform. "You're not going to see any changes — direct changes that are going to significantly affect children. You'll only begin seeing them as they begin to feel the results of reallocations that take place, decisions that get made at the school site. And more importantly you're not going to see the kind of changes that need to be made unless you define Chicago school reform more broadly than what is in the bill and you begin talking about those other kinds of issues that must be there too, but require funding."

Chicago schools are a mess. Sometime in the next year parents are going to have a chance to begin repairs. As of now they will undertake the project without the tools that some say they need. They will determine whether there will be Chicago school reform.□       Michael D. Klemens

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