I’m not including the finance in this because those are very legitimate concerns, but some of the carping doesn’t seem to get the plan.
One of the key points is that a merit pay system would be developed with teachers and teacher unions to get around the problem of capricious local decisions. I tend to the think merit pay isn’t that big of a deal, but if you are going to do it, this concern has to be met and I think the Governor’s plan wisely avoids the specifics.
The most bogus line
Local superintendents and elected school board members object to portions of the plan that they charge will wrest decisions away from them and put them in the hands of state education officials.
“This is a slap in the face of local control,” said Walt Warfield, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators. The governor is saying “that the state board, which has absolutely no track record of educational excellence, even competence, is in a better position to run a school than a locally elected body,” Warfield said. “The higher up in government you go, the accountability and credibility tapers off.”
East Saint Louis. Brooklyn. Etc. Etc. Taking over failing districts is reasonable in extreme cases and those two examples are perfect.
The idea that local school boards are efficient or effective is nonsense. It’s a body created to insulate decisions from political parties and in the end, hardly anyone pays attention to what happens on the Boards other than if their taxes are increased. It doesn’t make state government perfect, but it does give the State of Illinois the leverage to come in and provide technical expertise that might otherwise be rejected.
And some of the complaints are just dumb:
But State Rep. Roger Eddy, a Republican who is also superintendent of a Downstate school district, said replacing books every six years would take more than the $40 million the governor has proposed to update books. “I think you have to be careful when you mandate a schedule, that you also allocate enough dollars,” he said.
A six year cycle is reasonable. For social studies and science it is imperative as we learn more about our world. Math and other texts need to be updated for new improvements in curriculum.
But that’s just the small part of the problem with the statement–am I to understand this superintendent doesn’t do a curriculum review every six years including materials? WTF? There is no excuse for this sort of crap and with NCLB, one of the few good side benefits to come from it, is an emphasis on better understanding teaching techniques with actual quality scientific research. In six years, pedagogy changes a lot–and so the curriculum should be reviewed, updated and new materials bought. If it takes more money, good enough, let’s find it, but it has to happen. If his District isn’t currently doing that, then he shouldn’t be superintendent.
The biggest fault other than the financing I see in the plan is centralized procurement and building. Given the track record of CMS there is little reason to think centralization will work. A better system would be to provide technical assistance to Districts for issuing RFPs and then evaluating the proposals later.
The other argument from A+ Schools is that it doesn’t go far enough.
I agree. And the funding issue is a big part of that, but the actual plan is decent and would improve education in Illinois–more to the point, it wouldn’t eliminate future changes in law to put the State on a better funding strategy–it only addresses 4 years and then continues some funding.
I’d like the Governor to change his mind about taxes, but he isn’t going to do that, and Madigan isn’t going to leave his people out there with a tax increase with a Governor attacking the plan. The political reality if Rod is reelected is this is about as good as it going to get and it’s a good improvement in terms of programmatic changes and in the long term it doesn’t limit future changes in funding related to a tax swap.
That said, as I said before the release, Madigan is going to have to seriously consider whether this leaves too much of a funding mess to clean up out of interest in Lisa’s potential run in four years. Even if she were to campaign on a tax swap, it could make a couple difficult years while it’s put into place.
Let’s face it: A fundamental shift away from the property tax model for school funding is just about impossible, politically speaking. There is just no way that anyone will convince suburban parents–who hold most of the political power in this situation–to go along with raising their taxes while taking money away from their neighborhood schools.
But those who criticize Blago’s plan as a short-term fix have a point. Cashing out the lottery means the state will cut itself off from a reliable, politically painless source of income.
If you want to argue the morality of the state being in the gambling business at all, that’s another issue. But drying up an important revenue stream for quick, upfront cash is the Payday Loan theory of government.