Q&A Interview

An interview with Joseph Spagnolo

In many eyes, Joseph Spagnolo had some big shoes to fill when he was appointed June 15 as Illinois superintendent of education. He replaced Bob Leininger, who had built a reputation as a strong advocate for improved education, including a more equitable funding system for the state's public schools.

To get up to speed, Spagnolo spent much of his first few months on the job traveling the state and acquainting himself with the needs of different regions. Coming from the state of Virginia, where he served four years as superintendent of education under former Gov. Douglas Wilder, he thought he had experience dealing with education in a diverse state. Nonetheless, coming to Illinois has been a real eye-opener.

Q: How is the job going so far?
A: It's been fascinating, really fascinating. I've devoted most of my time to meeting people and getting to know the state. The education issues and matters associated with schools are fairly consistent with those in Virginia, and they're probably fairly consistent across the country. As far as Illinois is concerned, the diversity is surprising. I thought Virginia was diverse. It has the more cosmopolitan area around Washington, D.C., as well as very rural areas. But it's much more diverse in Illinois.

Q: What does that mean for Illinois ?
A: I think it represents a challenge. I think we usually try to envision schooling as entirely separate from our surrounding cultural environment. But that's not the case. The city of Chicago is different from rural areas. If your objective is to create learning standards across the board, you have to take that into account. What I see is a concerted effort to take these differences into account in Illinois, but we haven't tied it all together yet.

Q: How do we do that?
A: It starts with saying, "This is what we want every child to know, across the board." Then you work backward with performance assessments: How well are they doing? Then we develop the funding needed to meet those goals.

Q: Speaking of funding for education, what should we do about it?
A: I would say funding certainly is a problem. In terms of specific solutions, I couldn't comment on any because I haven't thoroughly studied all of the issues. I don't mean to imply we don't need more money going to our schools. But if we're not also looking at the product at the same time we put new money in, we're on the road to doing the same thing we've been doing. The answer of what's enough money and what is too much is one thing we have to figure out. But we have to deal with both parts of the equation. We have to connect money with results. Education is a very labor-intensive field. Teachers need to be compensated to a greater extent than they are, I believe. If you can't pay salaries that are competitive to keep good people, you're in a world of trouble. What's enough? It's hard to know, but it seems to be more than we now pay. Since you have to pay people, that leaves precious little money going to changing the agenda and outcome of education. If we spend $3 billion a year on education, and we took just one percent of that and dedicated it to implementing strategies toward true change, that would come out to about $30 million a year. That might be a worthwhile target when it comes to dedicating resources.

Q: And where would you put that money?
A: It could go toward integrating technology into schools. Or professional development for teachers. I think we need to collaborate with private and public sector entities. We need to focus on the needs of children in dire circumstances. We need to focus on parental responsibility a lot more. How do schools engage parents, and how do parents engage the schools? Parent-teacher associations are fine, but they've got to do more than sell cookies at a bake sale. Schools have to work with businesses to allow parents time off to visit schools, and schools have to make time for teachers to visit parents' workplaces. There are a lot of single parents out there who have absolutely no choice but to work so they can keep food on the table for their kids.

Joseph Spagnolo

Q: Do you support Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dawn dark Netsch's proposal to raise the income tax, in part to put an extra $1 billion into education?
A: It's a little premature for me to reflect on anyone's particular plan. I made a commitment to stay out of the gubernatorial fray because I'm just not familiar with all the issues.

Q: How do you feel about year-round schools?
A: My approach to that would be pragmatic. School year-round for everyone would be very expensive. We were looking at this in Virginia, and we found that to extend the schools 20 or 25 days would have cost $500 million. I wouldn't argue against a longer school year because there is some evidence that longer time in school means greater acquisition of knowledge. What we have to figure out is whether the cost-benefit ratio is worth it. Would some of the money be better spent elsewhere? It's an open question. If we had that kind of money to spend, would it be better to extend the school year for everyone, or extend it for some (which I call variable time) with the remainder of the money spent on technology?

Q: What about charter schools?
A: The concept of charter schools is interesting. First of all, I have to say I'm opposed to public money going for private schools. But charter schools are a different animal. I couldn't support anything that works in the direction of separating people. There would have to be non-discrimination parameters set up. I don't think charter schools are a panacea or the ultimate solution, but I could certainly be persuaded to support them with the caveat that there be absolutely no discrimination. 

September 1994/lllinois Issues/11