Education Matters US

The South Town Star article stating Illinois funds 29 percent of public schools’ costs is disengenuous. This is an average across all schools in which some schools get the majority of their funding from the state and some get nearly zero. In addition, the property tax system that funds the majority of Illinois public schools is a State legislated process and sanctioned tax. Property taxes are a large part of the State funding formula.

Local school districts in Illinois are forced to raise 62 percent of their revenue from the property tax on homeowners and businesses. They get 8.4 percent of their money from the federal government.

Schools are not forced to raise revenue from property taxes as stated. Up until 1992 there was virtually no limit on the amount a school district could levy. Since 1992, they have been limited by PTELL, although that can be easily exploited to get more money than approvedTechnorati Tags: Education reform, SB2288, HB750, State Sen. Meeks, New Trier, Fund the child, PTELL, overtax, referndum, funding inequities. In addition, with each increase in in the local property tax levy, there is a decrease in in State funding. In essence, the amount levied locally and the lowering of the amount received from the State makes the funding locally increase at a faster rate than the State increases.

This current system absolutely causes funding to be different based on your zipcode. The solution that the schools, teachers unions, and many State Legislators want is a huge tax increase. The only thing this tax increase does is provide more money to the education bureaucracy while they only give a small portion to the actual education of the children.

State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) recently announced that he wants Chicago Public Schools students to enroll at suburban New Trier Township High School on the first day of class to protest the inequities in school funding in Illinois. For the past six years, Meeks has worked to pass legislation that would increase the state income tax to fund the schools, while offering some property tax relief.

This tax increase solution, known as SB2288/HB750, is what State Sen. Meeks wants. Again, this solution won’t provide the results he claims to want and that is an educated populace of inner city kids. His blind support of the education bureaucracy only extends the educational apartheid inherent in the current public government schools.

The solution to fix this is funding the child and stop funding the bureaucracy. When we start giving and equal amount of money to each child and let the parents choose what school they want them to attend, we will turn around our educational system in quick order. This is already been done in New Zealand with astoundingly quick results. Competition is a wonderful thing to end the bloated bureaucracy in our current government run monopoly call public schools. School choice saves money and increases results.