My Favorite Piece of Illinois Education History

Kadner points out the historical problem going to 1994 when Jim Edgar lied about school funding

But the political hypocrisy over the school funding issue dates back much further than that.

In 1994, Dawn Clark Netsch, a Democrat, ran for governor, calling for an income tax hike to fund public education in Illinois and reduce property taxes.

Incumbent Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican, denounced Netsch’s plan and said school funding reform wasn’t needed. Edgar trounced Netsch in the election. But two years later, Edgar asked the Legislature for an income tax increase to fund the public schools.

To really appreciate Edgar’s hypocrisy, you have to go back to 1992, when a constitutional amendment was on the state ballot that would have forced the state to adequately fund the schools. The weekend before the election, Edgar announced on a radio show that he would vote “no.” The measure, which needed to get 60 percent of the vote to become law, failed by two percentage points.

It goes back further than that though with Edgar being on the right side in 1990 wanting to make permanent the temporary income tax increase to support education.  He ran against Neil Hartigan who wanted to scrap the temporary income tax increase.  So Hartigan lied about it in 1990, Edgar lied about it in 1994, Ryan lied abou it in 1998 and Rod didn’t lie, he just lives in fantasyland.

One of the plans being mentioned by Meeks and the black caucus is an attempt to sunset local education property taxes as happened in Michigan the early 1990s.  Kadner’s column points out something interesting:

The National Center for Education Statistics says Iowa funds 45.6 percent of the cost of public education, Indiana 49.1 percent, Michigan 57.3 percent and Wisconsin 44.1 percent – compared to Illinois’ paltry 29 percent.

When Michigan opted for a new system, the state government paid 37% of the of the cost for public education.