Last weekend Gov. Jim Edgar’s great, big plan to save the Illinois schools was mugged and left for dead in the General Assembly. This week, the so-called friends of education should have been screaming in outrage. Well, to quote that renowned social commentator Bill Walton, it has been so quiet you can hear their jewelry rattling.
Senate President James “Pate” Philip stopped the governor’s $1.6 billion school funding plan all by himself. One would think Philip’s thwarting of the democratic process on a bill to help kids would have some serious repercussions from the pro-schools crowd.
Is that the clinking of some bracelets? Maybe it’s the sound of Philip’s brass knuckles.
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Nobody seems to be making any noise about the sabotage of the schools. There are some lessons in that.
Nobody believes a politician.
Especially when he’s counting the greenbacks in their wallets. Edgar proposed a swap of a higher income tax for lower property taxes. This was a good deal. There is no tax people hate more than the property tax because they feel like they can’t control it. Every three years somebody from the assessor’s office comes by their house, guesses that they have six bathrooms, five bedrooms and four fireplaces, and makes them pay for that.
By and large, people seem to trust Edgar. But when Edgar said he was going to give everyone lower property taxes, nobody believed him. Not for a minute. The predictable anti-tax zealots screamed and moaned, but plenty of normal people called legislators to say they thought this was a scam, too. He never changed their minds.
Nobody should believe a politician.
All that talk about forcing reform on the school bureaucracy? It was nonsense.
Edgar’s school plan made no more than a half-hearted stab at changing the work rules in schools because Edgar wanted, and got, the backing of the Illinois Education Association. The IEA represents teachers and is the most powerful education lobby in the state.
Philip bellowed that Edgar had sold out to the teachers, and it was up to the mighty Senate to set straight the governor and all those teachers. Then Philip sold out to the union. His bill was no stronger on work-rule reforms than Edgar’s because the IEA owns a few of Philip’s members, too.
Nobody thinks money makes a difference in education.
Think money doesn’t make a difference? Go visit a school that doesn’t have much of it. It’s depressing for the kids, depressing for the teachers, depressing for the parents.
Last year, the Illinois Tax Foundation ranked the performance of the state’s schools. The study put test scores right next to spending scores.
Take a look at the 157 elementary school districts where less than 10 percent of the students come from low-income families, where poverty isn’t a factor in education. Money makes a big difference.
Of the 50 best-performing schools, 75 percent spent more than the average school. The 16 top schools all spent more than the average. Of the 50 worst-performing schools, 80 percent spent less than the average.
The difference is not as stark between school districts that have more low-income families, except for this. The districts with the most low-income kids spend $270 less per pupil than the districts with the fewest low-income kids. The schools with the toughest challenge have the least money.
Unfortunately, it seems the people arguing that money doesn’t make a difference were also the people wearing the noisiest jewelry.
Schools protect their fiefdoms.
You would think that school administrators all over the state would have been carrying Jim Edgar on their shoulders as they rallied in Springfield for that $1.6 billion solution.
They weren’t. While the tax zealots were screaming that the property-tax cut was a scam, the school adminstrators knew it was quite real. Many of them quietly lobbied against Edgar’s plan. Who needs reform? They didn’t want to risk slowing down their local money tap.
The suburbs rule.
Edgar and House Speaker Michael Madigan had a great opportunity to put together a Chicago-Downstate coalition and roll over the suburbs on this bill. And they almost did it, but for one thing. Two of the most powerful people in the state, Philip and House Minority Leader Lee Daniels, live but a few miles from each other in DuPage County. They stopped this deal cold.
Jim Edgar has the cleanest fingernails in Springfield.
Because he won’t do anything to get them dirty. Many people say Edgar worked unusually hard for this deal. But then he went on an early vacation.
A day before the deadline for passing a school bill, Edgar had a chance to do something dramatic. He was invited to testify before the Senate committee that would decide its fate. He could go face-to-face with the very legislators who were going to pass or kill his bill.
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He didn’t. He stayed holed up in his office.
Why not testify? Governors just don’t do that sort of thing, Edgar said. The committee killed his bill. When they’re ignored, committees do that sort of thing.
The next day, legislative leaders say, Edgar sent word about 10 hours before the deadline for passing a school bill that it was too late to negotiate. The leaders never heard from him again. It’s hard to believe Edgar was in the legislature in the days when they stopped the clocks at midnight. He tossed out the clock just after lunchtime.
Since then, it has been awfully quiet on the school front, except for some sniping by the usual suspects. IEA President Bob Haisman accused Philip of “child abuse of the worst kind.” Edgar suggested Daniels held up an income tax increase because Daniels makes too much money.
This is what passes for adult education in Springfield.