The state of the State                                                

Is financing schools — in Chicago and elsewhere — a sham or a showdown? By JENNIFER HALPERIN

Shortly after the Labor Day weekend, education advocates from all over the state traveled to Springfield to opine on whether last year's failed "education first" amendment should be resurrected for next year's ballot.

They spent the better part of the day testifying before the full House — or at least those members willing to sit still and pay attention. But several of the more than 40 witnesses, and some lawmakers themselves, complained that the entire hearing was rather fruitless, saying the state Senate never would go along with the move to bring the amendment back to life. They called the process a sham, designed to steer attention away from the Chicago public schools mess.

Under that line of thinking, the rhetorical question could be asked: What isn't a sham under the State Capitol dome? Every year, citizens spend time and money to travel to Springfield so they can participate in their own democratic government. They organize rallies, set up meetings with lawmakers, offer earnest testimony in committee hearings — only to have bills' fates decided in conference committees to which they have no access. Lawmakers can grandstand on the floors of the House and Senate, making passionate pleas or accusations on behalf of a particular measure, but such rhetoric rarely gets much accomplished.

The delayed opening of Chicago schools this year gave just about everyone a chance to display some degree of political posturing. By state law, Chicago is singled out as the only district that cannot start school until it has a balanced budget. The question was: Who would trade what to fill the money gap? Besides the usual Chicago School Board/Chicago Teachers Union finger-pointing, some suburban Republican lawmakers got the chance to blast those in charge of the city's huge school system, while downstaters added to the fray by voicing their own districts' financial needs.

The crisis also was an example of officials' oft-criticized but possibly unavoidable tendency to "govern by crisis." Chicago schools were set to open September 8. By the following week, a lack of agreement between any of the interested parties — from lawmakers to teachers union negotiators to the Chicago School Board — continued. When a federal judge popped up September 13, issuing a 10-day restraining order allowing the school system to open temporarily without a balanced budget, Gov. Jim Edgar expressed dismay. He said he was afraid that even such a short-term reprieve would take pressure off the interested parties to negotiate an end to the mess.

Through it all, as everyone kept reminding everyone else, the real victims of the chaotic situation were the 411,000 public school students in the city.

"The number one reform in the state ought to be ... to get the kids in Chicago back in school," said House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels (R-46, Elmhurst).

The whole process revealed Republicans' power gain in the General Assembly since they took control of the Senate nearly a year ago. Daniels and Senate President James "Pate" Philip (R-23, Wood Dale) demanded that some type of "school choice" plan be included in the final agreement to open Chicago schools.

Their insistence that some type of new approach be tried is understandable, considering that they have watched reform efforts in the system that weren't able to thwart this year's crisis. The 1988 Chicago School Reform Act

8/October 1993/Illinois Issues

supposedly is starting to show results, according to a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research. But it's difficult to have too much hope in such findings when there are more than 400,000 Chicago school children waiting to get into their classes.

Yet even the plans the two Republican leaders backed respectively were different, indicating the variety of ideas floating around that were touted as necessary inclusions in a solution.

Philip backed a voucher program geared toward forcing Chicago public schools to be competitive in a market environment. Parents would be able to send their children to a private school by granting each child in the program a voucher worth $1,400 in state aid.

Daniels, meanwhile, supported a plan that would create 12 "charter schools" in Illinois that would be free from most state regulations, such as union contracts.

The voucher proposal put Edgar in a sticky position because he would like to garner some support from teachers unions next year in the gubernatorial race.

But even if a voucher system is put into place, it's not going to be enough to put the educational systems of Chicago — and Illinois — on sound financial footing. And upcoming elections make it difficult to predict whether an increase in the state's income tax — coupled with property tax relief — will be implemented as a solution.

After seeing state judges elsewhere declare other states' school funding systems unconstitutional, Illinois officials have that in the back of their minds as another possibility they may have to contend with. As it is now, 68 of the state's school districts have banded together to appeal a decision made last year by a Cook County Circuit Court judge, who ruled that the Illinois Constitution does not make education a right: It's the legislature's job, he said, to decide whether the state should ensure equitable funding. With the federal court adding its own two cents to the crowded pot of state, city and local education council-level ideas about what is best and necessary for the children of Chicago, that's a job that has become more and more complicated almost by the hour. *

October 1993/Illinois Issues/9