A plan to divide Chicago into 50 school districts, based on existing ward lines, will be introduced next month in the Illinois General Assembly, according to U.S. Rep. William Lipinski (D., Ill.), an architect of the plan. Lipinski said Friday that the proposal was drawn up over the last several months by him, Ald. William Krystyniak (23d) and State Rep. Robert Terzich
(D., Chicago), who will introduce it when the legislature reconvenes in March. Krystyniak is the unopposed Democratic nominee for the Illinois Senate in the Southwest Side district.
The plan, to be outlined in greater detail by Krystyniak and Terzich at a press conference next week, calls for each of the city`s 50 wards to elect its own seven-member school board to have complete control over schools and policies in their wards.
Though a central Board of Education office would be maintained, its main duties would be to impose taxes and distribute revenues to the 50 school districts, Lipinski said.
He said the funds will be allocated by the number of students in each district. ”The only function of the central office will be to allocate tax monies,” Lipinski said.
Under the plan, there would be 50 autonomous school districts with 7 board members in each, resulting in a total of 350 school board members throughout the city, operating outside of the direct control of a central board or school board office.
There are now 11 members on the Central Board of Education, and they oversee the activities of 20 elementary school districts and 3 high school districts.
George Munoz, a member of the school board and former board president, said the proposal ”begs for complete politicization of the school system and addresses none of the real concerns such as strikes, dropouts and financial needs of the system.”
Calling the proposal ”naive and unworkable,” Munoz said the plan ignores past research on dividing up a large school system. In New York, for example, the split into 32 districts has proved to be too many, he said.
”Fifty is outrageous,” he said, adding that he does, however, support breaking the school system into two or three components.
The Lipinski plan would interfere with current racial integration of the school system in which students from one area travel to schools in another, said Frank Gardner, president of the school board.
”The funds should follow the students,” he said. Students also cross district lines to attend magnet schools and special education classes, he added.
Organizing school administration under the proposal would involve unnecessary duplication, he added. ”Does that mean there would be 50 finance departments, 50 special-education departments, 50 computer systems, 50 custodial systems?” he asked. ”Where does this stop?”