Vickie Claggett worries about whether her son and two daughters are being short-changed at Dalzell Elementary School near LaSalle.
It`s not that the school is doing a bad job, but the little central Illinois farming community doesn`t have very much money to spend-$2,253 a pupil, the lowest ratio in the state.
The school has no computer lab, after-school day care, foreign language classes or summer school.
About a hundred miles to the north, Sharon Barsotti knows her 6th-grade son has real advantages at Salt Creek School District in Villa Park. The school has an orchestra, after-school clubs, a new technology lab and athletic teams in six sports.
The Du Page County school district is among the richest in the state, spending $7,551 on each pupil last year.
The two schools provide a stark contrast and a clear illustration of the debate over school funding in Illinois.
For years, both districts have looked to the state to pay more toward the cost of education. Poor districts want money for more programs, and many suburban districts want to take some pressure off property-tax bills.
A proposed constitutional amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot would require the state to pay the ”preponderant” cost of education in Illinois. On the surface, the idea sounds like it will help everyone. But that may not be the case.
Instead of viewing the measure as a chance to provide the long-awaited answer to a thorny problem, many in the suburbs see it as an empty promise that could lead to higher income taxes and no significant property-tax relief. And given recent proposals to shift even more state money from affluent suburban districts to the Chicago Public Schools and struggling school systems Downstate, there is suspicion that funding reform is really just code for raising the suburbs` bill.
The line is being drawn on the issue, and it divides the haves and have-nots.
Barsotti said, ”I wouldn`t feel so bad about paying more to support other schools if I didn`t feel that they are mismanaged. I think the money should stay in local communities, and schools should learn to use what they have better.”
But Claggett said she sees it differently.
”Kids who live in towns with lower incomes have just as much right to an education as those in the wealthy suburbs,” she said. ”Either (the suburbs) will pay for educating all the state`s children now, or they can pay for welfare later.”
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Some observers contend that the whole thing is nothing but a political ploy aimed at forcing Gov. Jim Edgar to break his pledge not to raise income taxes. If the referendum question is not approved, it will take some pressure off the General Assembly to respond to the howls of suburban tax protesters and demands by the Chicago schools for more money.
But others believe the amendment proposition is an attempt, however imperfect, to correct a basic inequity in society.
G. Alan Hickrod, director of the Center for the Study of Educational Finances at Illinois State University and member of the Coalition for Educational Rights, said, ”The fundamental right to education is a prerequisite to all the other rights-the right to vote and the right to express your religion.
”Just because you live north of I-80 doesn`t mean you`re not responsible for shouldering the educational costs elsewhere in the state.”
Supporters of the proposed amendment include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Chicago Teachers Union, United Auto Workers and dozens of other organizations that have united into two coalitions.
Sen. Arthur Berman, a Democrat whose district includes Evanston and neighborhoods in Wilmette and Chicago, is a sponsor of the proposal.
”Every politician in the General Assembly would love to vote for a bill that would provide increased funding for schools and property-tax relief to those property owners in the high-expenditure districts,” he said.
But Sen. Judy Baar Topinka, a Republican whose district includes Cicero, Forest Park and Oak Brook, scoffed at that notion.
”That is Berman`s fantasy of what would happen, but it`s actually a nightmare,” said Topinka, who is participating in a radio ad campaign against the proposed amendment.
”The suburbs will get nothing but an income-tax increase and nothing back in return. We`re already paying through the nose for everybody else`s bills,” she said.
In Topinka`s camp is the Illinois Manufacturers Association, the Illinois Retail Merchants and Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, who fear an income-tax increase.
The source of much suspicion about the proposed amendment is the vagueness of the language. The measure would require the state to assume preponderant responsibility for funding education, but it does not spell out what that means. Webster`s dictionary defines the word as ”superior in weight, force, influence and numbers, etc.”
The proposal also says nothing about where the money would come from or how it would be doled out. The General Assembly would have to fill in the blanks.
Vagueness also is a problem with the current language of the state Constitution when it comes to funding schools. That ambiguity set the stage for November`s ballot question.
The Constitution requires the state to take on ”primary” responsibility for funding education in the state, traditionally interpreted as at least half the cost. Since the mid-1970s, that percentage has declined from slightly less than 50 percent to about 31 percent for the 1990-91 school year. About 63 percent comes from property taxes and the rest from federal sources.
State funds, however, are distributed to school districts according to a complicated formula that recognizes need. For instance, the Chicago school system received about 37 percent of its budget from the state in 1991. In affluent Du Page County, state funds accounted for about 10 percent of the school budgets that year.
Further complicating the school aid picture is a recommendation by the Illinois Task Force on School Finance that the state establish the cost of educating a pupil in Illinois at $4,000 a year. About 80 percent of the state`s school districts-mostly Downstate-are below that figure.
Using that $4,000 benchmark, and interpreting ”preponderant” to mean at least half, the state`s bill for education would rise by at least $1.5 billion a year and, according to some estimates, $2.9 billion. The state spends about $3.5 billion a year on aid to education.
The extra money has to come from somewhere, and even the bill`s supporters said that likely would mean an income-tax increase.
Under some proposals, the state would use that money to correct the growing disparity between what is spent on children in the state`s richest schools and on those in its poorest. The money would go first to push districts up to the $4,000 threshold.
Supporters reason that Illinois must spend all it can to ensure that every child gets a good education, even if that means, as state Schools Supt. Robert Leininger put it last week, ”taking from the rich and giving to the poor.”
If the state fails to do so, school officials warn, the courts will.
The disparity between spending per pupil is great.
For instance, the Winnetka-based New Trier High School district spends $10,378 per pupil compared with $5,548 in Chicago.
”If you only had $4,000 to spend in Winnetka, we`d see what would happen to their educational process,” said David C. Rudd, spokesman for the Chicago Public Schools.
Even though Chicago is above the $4,000 benchmark, the city schools could reap more money if the amendment is approved. The state would be required to come up with a new school aid formula, which could give more to the city schools for each child whose family falls below the poverty line.
Last in line for money would be suburban school districts that can spend far more than $4,000 a pupil.
Many educators in the suburbs said raising income taxes and shifting money from rich districts to poor ones is the price that must be paid to ensure that the quality of education is the same throughout Illinois.
James White, superintendent of Queen Bee District 16 in Du Page County, said, ”Why should a kid, because he is born in Glendale Heights, have less access to an educational opportunity than a child born a few blocks in another direction?”
The Queen Bee District and nearby Salt Creek Elementary District 48 in Villa Park illustrate the disparity.
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Salt Creek`s per pupil cost is $7,551, and Queen Bee spends $3,560 to educate each child. Yet, the tax rate for Queen Bee is almost three times that of Salt Creek, which counts the Oak Brook Center mall in its tax base.
The amendment issue does not break down cleanly along party lines. Ten Downstate House Republicans joined 61 Democrats to put the proposal on the ballot. But the issue is entwined with partisan politics just the same.
Democrats see the amendment as a chance to paint Edgar into a corner and force him to ask for a tax increase.
House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) favors the amendment, but Edgar says he may not take a position on the issue.
Even if the amendment is approved and the legislature adopts an income tax increase, the prospect that property-tax relief will follow remains uncertain.
”The constitutional amendment will make it possible for districts to roll back property taxes in most cases,” said Kim Knauer, a spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education. ”But in some of the wealthier school districts that don`t get much state money, it may not be as feasible for them to roll back their taxes.”
Still, Supt. David Cox of Zion-Benton Township High School District 126, said he believes many in the suburbs would support either the Robin Hood proposal or an income-tax increase if something were offered in return.
”I don`t think there`d be any opposition to a state income-tax increase if the tax cap were abolished,” Barry said.