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Education Desk
The Education Desk is our education blog focusing on key areas of news coverage important to the state and its improvement. Evidence of public policy performance and impact will be reported and analyzed. We encourage you to engage in commenting and discussing the coverage of education from pre-natal to Higher Ed.Dusty Rhodes curates this blog that will provide follow-up to full-length stories, links to other reports of interest, statistics, and conversations with you about the issues and stories.About - Additional Education Coverage00000179-2419-d250-a579-e41d385d0000

Education Desk: Funding Reform Commission Faces Tough Task

Dusty Rhodes
/
NPR Illinois/Illinois Issues

In July, Gov. Bruce Rauner established a bipartisan commission to find a way to fix the state's method of funding schools. Beth Purvis is the governor's Secretary of Education and she chairs this new group. When she opened the first meeting with scores of lawmakers and stakeholders in both Chicago and Springfield, Purvis spoke bluntly by reminding participants why Illinois needs a new plan.

“We are ranked 50th, or received an F, by almost everyone who ranked us in terms of the difference between what we spend on our students who live in our, what we consider our wealthiest districts, and those who are in our poorest," she said.

Ten state senators, 10 state representatives and five experts appointed by the governor's office comprise this latest team to be tasked with solving Illinois' school funding puzzle. State lawmakers have been struggling for several years to revamp the school funding formula -- the most inequitable distribution method in the nation. One concept considered key to the political success of any proposal is that no district should lose any state funds. This is known as a "hold-harmless" provision.

 

But at the commission's first meeting, Purvis emphasized that the concept is not carved in stone.

 

“I don’t know that there’s been a decision that there will be a hold-harmless, or what that might mean. You know? Because I think that there are a lot of different ways that we could define hold-harmless," she said. "So I think one of the first conversations that we might need to have that might be a working group is what is the definition of hold harmless?”

 

 

The day after the meeting, we debriefed Sen. Andy Manar, a Democrat from Bunker Hill who has been leading efforts to reform school funding for the past three years.

 

 

Highlights of the interview

On the current state of school funding:

“Less than half of the (state funds earmarked for K-12 education) is distributed based on need -- which is the lowest in the country, as a percentage. Most states are in the range of 80 to 100 percent of distribution based on need…. I was stunned to find out that, despite our efforts over the past two years, to slowly change how we construct a budget and  appropriate money… today we only devote 45 percent of the money we have in the state budget to the neediest districts, or distributed based on need…. But here’s the stunning part: We have spent a billion dollars more on schools. So in the last three fiscal years, we’ve raised spending well over a billion dollars for public education, but we’ve only moved the needle 1 percent to the neediest districts…. That shows that not only are we not moving the needle to direct money to the right places, we are throwing more than a billion dollars into a broken system.”

On whether a new school funding plan would contain a “hold-harmless” provision:

“I’ve said consistently now that if the expectation is that no district should lose money ever, if that’s the expectation, then we’re going to fail. Because that’s not reasonable. The plans that we’ve advanced in the Senate, they have been phased in over any number of years… and they have included hold-harmless provisions. But they’re not a forever proposition nor should they be. So I’ve never interpreted what Gov. Rauner has said when it comes to hold-harmless provisions as absolute and forever.”

On whether this commission will result in legislation:

“Much of the work has already been done. The true test of success is going to come about the time when concepts -- how do we address these massive issues in concepts? -- have to be translated into legislation. But Gov. Rauner’s the one person in this conversation who’s been elected statewide, so the burden of holding this group together when those difficult choices come, when we’re putting a bill together, that burden is going to be squarely on Gov. Rauner’s shoulders, because this is his commission…. We’ve been through this before. The meetings are going to become heavier. And the true measure of success is going to come when the commission has to produce a bill.”

 

 

 

After a long career in newspapers (Dallas Observer, The Dallas Morning News, Anchorage Daily News, Illinois Times), Dusty returned to school to get a master's degree in multimedia journalism. She began work as Education Desk reporter at NPR Illinois in September 2014.
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