The plan to unload rural districts in Illinois.

I am new to all of this but I noticed that the Madigan Family Foundation of Chicago is an Investor to the New Schools for Chicago (Charter Schools). As a downstate person people down here think charter schools will never happen to us but I think they are wrong.

If they cost shift it will kill us. We pay higher property taxes in our rural communities than the suburbs of Chicago’s wealthier districts and Chicago itself. We cannot afford any more property tax increases and they will not pass, we tried a few years ago and it failed so we had to RIF. You see with cost shift all that is left is deep, deep budget cuts and we have already cut 2.6 million in our district 2 years ago, and it almost killed us.

Now if cost shift is passed and goes into effect, we will have to fund our pensions, and health care crippling us and making the union look bad when we cannot negotiate salary increases, pension or healthcare. In fact, we will have to go for cuts, with SB7’s effect on the riffing process, which really got rid of tenure. We will have to cut music, art and sports to be able to fund our district. It will be hard to attract business or hire professors at our university (EIU) because who will want to move into a district where the school does not provide the arts, sports and has high student to teacher ratio and so on. Businesses, community members will be looking for solutions to bring in money to our school district so we can attract businesses, professors and prevent people from leaving our community, they will become desperate to save our rural communities, looking for answers.

In the meantime, our membership will be pissed that they did not get salary increases on our new contract, which will be negotiated in 2013. You see we did not get much our last contract, about 1% to save jobs and reduce cutting positions. All of this weakens the unions and gets our membership to turn against us because they will say “What are our dues going to if they cannot even protect us or help us”.

Put all of this together and we have the perfect storm, which creates a climate that opens the door for downstate charter schools in rural communities so in people’s minds we can survive and thrive, attract businesses and professors to our community again and prevent mass exodus from our communities.

In addition, the state no longer has to take care of downstate rural Illinois, which they have been looking for a way to unload us, freeing up the state’s money and responsibilities and continue on their unethical unfair practices benefitting big business and Chicago.

It will be a dog eat dog world throughout the state of Illinois to survive, it will force consolidation, weaken unions and open the door for charter investors. It will be a buyer’s market for charter investors. Cost Shift is the key to their triple threat because along with SB 7 and PERA, it will make us desperate to save our communities, destroy us downstate and kill the unions at the same time.

Our rural and downstate elected officials, (basically anyone outside of Chicago and wealthy suburbs) know this and have a hard time voting for what they know will kill us. It has always been downstate and rural Illinois against wealthy suburbs and Chicago elected officials. Big money never wants to tackle a graduated tax structure because those reps know their constituents do not want to share their property tax money, it is how they remain elite. They will never vote for what is really the best solution for our state and public education so they have to find a way to make it look like it was the only solution while still keeping all the money for themselves.

We already have horrible inequity of funding for public schools in our state but elected officials do not have the integrity or ethics to do what is really best for everyone in the state and public education so the solution is to just get rid of public education (you know by the people for the people) and go to charters. They only vote for their own self-interest. We do not have anyone who wants to do the right thing, has enough power, or votes to do the right thing. Everything has to get past Madigan and he will not let the right thing happen. It is so corrupt it is disgusting. There is so much more to this but I am sure I do not have to fill in the blanks for everyone.

Bottom line is, this  is how Madigan, Quinn, Rahm, The Commercial Club and Civic Committee of Chicago,  along with Wealthy suburban districts can finally Unload Rural Illinois and let us figure out how to survive on our own, “not their problem” kind of mentality.

Real Solutions include a graduated income tax, looking at budget busters and closing those loopholes, call out unethical practices and a concentrated power structure that impedes progress and holds the entire state hostage. How can this be okay for anyone in a democracy?  This is what we need to be educating our public about but how do we do this? This is why a Democrat turned independent supports downstate republicans. Because they hate Madigan and I am all for getting rid of Madigan and opening up the floodgates.

Roxanne Cornebise’s Page on Illinois Teachers and Neighbors United.