“Fred,” my old friend Bob Lyons wrote me late yesterday after the House vote on the voucher funding bill. “Can you spell charade? “
“State representative to union leader, ‘I was with you, I voted no. But in the end, the school kids needed the money so they could go to school. I had to vote yes. I have to go now it is my forty year reunion for St. Ignatius.'”
Cassie Creswell, who was on Hitting Left last Friday , posted a letter to Rauner against vouchers and the Trump/DeVos education agenda in May on the Raise Your Hand web page.
The letter was signed by a number of state legislators.
Representatives Carol Ammons, Kelly Cassidy, Linda Chapa LaVia, Barbara Flynn Currie, Mary Flowers, Robyn Gabel, Will Guzzardi, Michael Halpin, Sonya Harper, Greg Harris, Camille Lilly, Theresa Mah, Robert Martwick, Christian Mitchell, Anna Moeller, Elaine Nekritz, Juliana Stratton, Silvana Tabares, Chris Welch, Ann Williams
Senators Omar Aquino, Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, Daniel Biss, Melinda Bush, Cristina Castro, John Cullerton, Bill Cunningham, Don Harmon, Kimberly Lightford, Iris Martinez, Laura Murphy, Kwame Raoul, Heather Steans, Patricia Van Pelt.
Yesterday, Chapa LaVia, Currie, Harris, Lilly, Nekritz, Tabares and Williams voted yes to vouchers.
The best thing you can say about 40th State Representative Jaime Andrade is that he never said he was against vouchers in the first place. But he ran with the endorsement of progressive politicians and labor unions as someone who had changed his spots and was no longer a Machine guy.
This might be the moment for them to reflect on their choices.
The state senate has yet to act.
However, I think it is fair to say that Illinois Democrats showed themselves to be in cahoots with the Republicans on vouchers.
The funding bill was not all that to begin with. It was a phony “funding equity” bill that avoided four school funding facts:
Illinois will remain a state buried somewhere near the bottom of the list of how well states fund their schools.
Illinois will continue with the racist school funding policy that relies on local taxes for education. Rich school districts get more. Poor school districts get less. Claims to the contrary are meant to deceive.
Special education will take a major hit. Direct and dedicated funding for special education teachers will end and will now look like Chicago. It is the wrong direction to go.
Only a change in the way we raise revenue – a progressive income tax – and a funding formula based on adequacy will change that.
Check the list of House members to see how they voted. Which ones switched their vote in less time than it takes to watch an episode of American Ninja Warriors?
Ask them why.
But unless we’re willing to change the system of revenue and funding, their answer will be a charade.
Fred Klonsky 
It’s not a voucher, it is a scholarship fund, quit calling it a voucher.
How do we rank near the bottom of school funding? If that is true it’s not a revenue problem, it’s a politician problem because we rank near the top in total tax burden (always important to count TOTAL tax burden, sales, real estate and income, as well as a lot of the bullshit add on fees like garbage pick up and parking).
Actually it is worse than a voucher. Economists call it a “neo-voucher” because it is still public funding for private and parochial schools. As for the issue of tax burden, read the post again. Taxes have to be higher at the local level if taxes are low at the state level. So the tax burden falls most heavily on those who can least afford it.
Dear Fred
You have a lot smarter people who read your blog than me.Could somebody translate this portion of the bill for us ?
(105 ILCS 5/2-3.170 new)
Sec. 2-3.170. Property tax relief pool grants.
(a) As used in this Section,
“Property tax multiplier” equals one minus the square of
the school district’s Local Capacity Percentage, as defined in
Section 18-8.15 of this Code.
Bob – That new section is effective only if money is appropriated for it, but ZERO money was appropriated.
Fred – Yes, this is worse than a voucher. Wealthy people reduce their taxes by 75 cent for each dollar donated, can direct that their money only go to a specific private school, and can give up to $1,000,000 per person. The groups that actually give out the money can keep 5 percent of it, and decide who gets the money.
Re tax relief, but any new $ for the formula above $300m will got to the property tax pool, up to $50m. For FY19 onward, $350m will be added to school funding, but w/ the new tax provision, new $ that actually goes to school districts is only $300m because $50m goes to the property tax pool. The other section sets up a mechanism for deciding which districts get the property tax relief.
The greater problem with the tax credit is not that just that wealthy individuals can reduce their tax burden but that corporations can too. Only a few wealthy individuals will have tax exposure reaching $1,000,000 but many corporations could. The only restriction on corporate donations is that they cannot give to a specific school or sub-set of schools.
The real damage will occur in Chicago because the Archdiocese has capacity to enroll 1,000s of students. It is not that Chicago will lose state $ but that many schools will lose students, giving CPS a cover to close more schools.
I don’t know or understand all the details of the new Rauner “neo-vulture” scholarship parts of the school funding bill, but if Rauner and his Republican buddies like it, it is because it weakens the unions. Giving out money for scholarships is but a ruse. The primary purpose is to reduce the number of students attending unionized public schools to thus reduce the number of unionized teachers.