School Issues

In my last message, I talked about the issue of school consolidation. Since that time, there has been a flurry of action around this issue when Representative Rita's HB 1886 would have dissolved all Illinois school district with the exception of the Chicago Public Schools and replaced them with 100 county school districts effective July 1, 2012. This naturally created a firestorm of activity since this concept has not been fully discussed and communicated with all stakeholders. Many citizens were concerned about the lack of discourse regarding this issue and the fact the there was no provision for any local control. This bill would have dissolved elected boards of education and transferred local district liabilities and resources to a newly created county board of education, as well as all current school employees. The outrage caused by the posting of this bill for a hearing in the Counties and Township Committee of the Illinois House of Representatives instead of the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee generated phone calls to committee members that shut down this action quickly. Last week hearings were held concerning HB 1216 (Chapa La Via, D-Aurora) that would establish a “School District Realignment and Consolidation Commission” to examine the issues surrounding consolidation and report back to the General Assembly by July 1, 2012. This bill seems to have more support since it relies on the input of all stakeholders and doesn't force any arbitrary solutions to a very complex problem.

Since Governor Quinn's premise for supporting mass consolidation is to reduce school administrative costs, I thought it appropriate to discuss our local costs in that context. Center Cass SD ranks in the bottom quartile (lowest) of Illinois Elementary Districts at 309 of 378 districts. Our cost is $235.57 per child. There are only two DuPage County districts with lower administrative costs. Those districts are Roselle District 12 and West Chicago 33. Our neighboring districts all exceed us in administrative cost comparisons. The highest per capita administrative cost for an elementary district in the state of Illinois is $3,985. We are proud that our low administrative cost allows our students to perform well within the highest quartile in student achievement.

In the meanwhile, Governor Quinn continues to push to reduce Illinois districts form 868 to 300 or fewer having a population of 30,000 to 35,000. Boundaries would be established like legislative districts with no local input. Apparently, the Governor has forgotten that current consolidation rules have the state pay the difference in teacher salaries. Somehow the Governor thinks that the state would save over $100 million in administrative salaries via consolidation. The Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) reports as an example that merging the seven Palatine area elementary districts with one high school district could save $1.6 million in administrative costs but the resulting increase in teacher salaries in the new consolidated district would cost $10 million. One can easily see that Governor Quinn's math is not correct and economics alone can not sell an argument for mass consolidation with out local input. Keep your eyes and ears open as this issues continues to percolate in Springfield.