EDITORIAL: A win, if far from perfect, for Illinois schoolchildren

SHARE EDITORIAL: A win, if far from perfect, for Illinois schoolchildren
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Parents protesting school funding issues in 2016. | Sun-Times file photo

This is a win. Let’s take it, everybody.

A school funding deal that is close to being finalized in Springfield is truly historic. It finally would give more of the state’s education money to the students who need it most — kids who are poor or have special learning needs. It is the most fundamental and essential change in school funding in generations.

The bill is far from perfect, but it is a game-changer. It would begin to bridge the largest gap in the country between rich and poor school districts.

EDITORIAL

As we wrote just a few days ago, we strongly oppose one big last-minute add-on. The tax credit to people who donate money for scholarships at private schools, muscled into the bill by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, is nothing but a sop to legislators who won’t support the larger deal otherwise. But compromise is the name of the game, as we so often lecture others. So be it.

We frankly are slightly amazed that Illinois, after decades of looking the other way, is on the verge of doing right — or at least far better — by the poorest children in the poorest school districts in the state. We started writing about this stuff no later than the 1980s and long ago began to doubt we’d ever see the day.

So, yes, this is a win for schoolchildren and our state’s future, which are really one and the same.

Our hope, against all likelihood, is that the tax credit, designed to encourage people to donate to scholarship programs for middle- and low-income families, will be tamped down in the final negotiations this weekend. A vote on the bill is expected on Monday. Our concern, shared by the teachers’ unions, is that the tax credit would blow a hole in the state budget that nobody knows how to fill, and it could — indirectly and over the years — lead to less state funding for the public schools.

At minimum, the governor and legislative leaders should reduce the tax credit from 75 cents on a dollar to 50 cents. That would bring it more in line with two neighboring states: Iowa and Indiana. We’re told not to worry, that the whole matter could be revisited later, given that the tax credit would sunset — expire — in five years. But when does anybody ever give up money? The Archdiocese and other private school operators will fight hard to extend the program.

The overall deal, nonetheless, is a keeper. It would, over time, direct a significantly larger portion of state education dollars to school districts that are scandalously underfunded because they have little property tax wealth. No longer could Illinois be held up as the best example in the nation for how not to fund public education. For every dollar that has been spent on a student from a middle class family in Illinois, only 81 cents has been spent on a student from a low-income family.

The new model initially gives all schools the same funding they received last year so that no school loses a dime. An additional $350 million, included in the state budget enacted in July, would be distributed to schools based on how many kids come from disadvantaged backgrounds, have special needs and other factors.

In the future, though, if the state Legislature failed to meet basic minimums for education funding — as has happened in the past — wealthier schools would be the first to take a hit and poorer schools would be last. You can bet those wealthier communities, with all their political clout, would lean on the Legislature to provide full funding every year.

We see this as a mild win for Gov. Bruce Rauner, as well, although we’re not sure he would entirely agree. The new education funding formula includes none of the demands he made in his amendatory veto of the original legislation, Senate Bill 1. There are no changes in union rules, for example, and no linking of a school district’s funding to how local TIF funds are used. Nothing dreamed up by the governor’s staffers from the ideologically rigid Illinois Policy Institute seems to have survived the final deal.

But the agreement does include that tax credit for scholarships, which resembles the kind of voucher Republicans long have favored, and the governor, for once, is in on the action. He is not sitting outside looking in, as he did earlier this summer when the Legislature enacted a state budget over his veto.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, for his part, would get everything he wants for Chicago’s schools and more. But it still won’t be enough. Even if this bill is approved on Monday, the mayor still must find a way to bridge a funding gap for the current school year and in the future, which could mean higher local property taxes.

For the sake of our children, let’s get this deal done.

Send letters to: letters@suntimes.com

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