Illinois voters, if you care about our teachers, I urge you to vote NO to the Illinois Constitution question that will appear on your ballot this November:
Public Questions
To the Voters of Cook County:
“Shall the Illinois Constitution be amended
to establish a recall process for the office
of Governor and other statewide elected
officials?”
Every ten years this question is put on our ballots to see if the public wants our constitution re-evaluated. Well, sounds nice and good, right? Re-evaluate our constitution.
Consider this. It’s gonna cost us $100 million in taxpayer dollars. It’s likely to be run by the same politicians that have created a virtual stalemate in Springfield. And worse yet…
This convention will consider TAKING AWAY THE PENSION from our teachers. Full disclosure: my dad is a retired college professor from an Illinois state school. He worked for 35 years. Instead of a 401k, the state offered to let him put HIS OWN MONEY into a pension fund. And now the state is going to consider taking away the pensions from our teachers.
Please understand that this money is not state money. It is money that my dad put into his own fund. And now the state wants to take this away. It’s downright wrong.
I strongly urge you with my heart to vote NO to the Illinois Constitution question that will appear on your ballot.
$100m to re-evaluate the state constitution!? That’s bananas! I’m afraid Blogo’s current 13% approval rating and the title of this referendum could usurp any logical thinking on the voters’ behalf … especially those who won’t even bother to read the entire referendum or do any research on how much it would cost or where the monies would come from. Thank you for showing us the under-belly of this referendum!
There are three sections under Article X Education: Section 1: Free schools Section 2: Chief State Educational Officer Section 3: Public Funds for Sectarian Purposes Forbidden (You can read the entire section at: http://tr.im/section10education ) Let’s go by them one by one and see what some of the suggested changes could be if there was a Illinois Constitution Convention. And these would be good changes or not.
========================================== Section 1: Free Schools In Article X , section 1 do you want local (districts) to be the primary funders of our schools? Or the State? Right now it’s local. Do you want our messed up state to be the primary funders? I’d rather leave it up to the districts. The Illinois Bar Association put out a 70-page pdf document, “Understanding the Illinois Constitution” at: http://www.isba.org/Sections/constbook.pdf Here’s a clipping of what they said about Article X, section 1: —start clipping— The final sentence in section I states that the primary responsibility for financing public schools lies with the state. Some feel this means the state should provide at least the majority of funds needed for the schools, but the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that the phrase primary responsibility does not require the state to provide any set percentage of school funding. Some school funding will come from the state, but not necessarily the majority of funding. There have been amendments proposed to amend this section to make it clear that the majority of the money for education must come from the state. The legislature has passed none of these amendments. —end clipping— You start giving that funding power of the schools to the state, and that’s when you get problems (the state taking away the hard-earned pensions that belong to the educators. Every pay check, these educators put THEIR OWN money away. This is not the state giving them money. This is my dad putting away his own money into his own pension. And now the state wants to take his money–his pension away. SUMMARY: I DO NOT want the state to be the primary funder of our schools.
========================================== Section 2: Chief State Educational Officer The Illinois Bar Association summarizes this section nicely: –start clipping— Section 2 provides for a state superintendent of schools to be appointed. Previously, the state superintendent had been an elected official. By making the office an appointed one, the intent was to take the office out of the political arena. It was felt that a trained professional educational administrator who would not be subjected to running for office every four years should fill the post. –end clipping— Let’s see. Do I want a politican in office in charge of our schools? Or someone who actually knows what he/she is doing? I don’t want a politican in charge of our schools. Do you? It would be like if we voted the Chief of Police as a politican. We’d never do that. SUMMARY: Don’t have a politican as the head of our schools
========================================== Section 3: Public Funds for Sectarian Purposes Forbidden Section 3 also provides for a State Board of Education, which plans, administers, and evaluates educational programs on a statewide basis. Basically this alleviates teachers from having to do administration work. The Illinois Bar goes on to explain the system, but frankly, it’s beyond me. If there’s any section to change in the constitution regarding education, I GUESS it’s this one. But I would not want to risk changing the first two sections for this third one. SUMMARY: But if we only want to change the third section, then we can do so by ammendments, not by rejiggering the entire constitution.
=========================================== From Chicagotalks, “Should Illinois have a Con Con?” http://chicagotalks.org/wiki/should-illinois-have-a-con-con —start clipping— Attorney Ronald C. Smith said being frustrated is not sufficient reason to change the state’s constitution. Governments need stability, he said, and the people have ample opportunity every two or four years to tell the politicians what they think. “There are winners and losers in politics,” Smith said. “You can’t make everybody happy.” Describing the last convention as “fractious” and a “blood bath,” Smith, a law professor at John Marshall Law School, said it is not as easy to change the constitution as it may sound and the result in 1968 was one of the best constitutions in the country. “So I ask why do we want to change it?” Smith said. “Just because a few people can’t get their way on a few issues, is that reason to mess with the constitution?” Acknowledging the current problems in Springfield, Netsch and Smith said the constitution is not a “self-executing” document and hosting a constitutional convention in all likelihood would not work. Just hosting a “con con” sounds deceptively simple, Netsch said, and would not necessarily clean up all dysfunction in Springfield. “The crisis is not constitutional; it’s with the leaders in Springfield,” Netsch said. —end clipping—
=========================================== SUMMARY: All the sections regarding education in the Illinois Consitution do not need to be changed. Why have a $100 million conference to fix one section in one article? $100 million is 1.5% of the annual budget. Just create one ammendment and have the Illinois voters approve one ammendment. ===========================================
Hey Matt, Your idea that local funding of schools is superior brings into question the basic concept of fairness. Shouldn’t all public schools provide for all students in an equal manner — regardless of how expensive your house is?? Students in the poorest districts are being shafted by local funding of schools — this is how New Trier can exist with THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of dollars to spend on its already privileged students when students in Chicago cannot even get a single working computer in their classrooms. It inequitable, and just plain wrong. As for teachers, they will not have their pensions taken away by ConCon. That is merely a scare tactic being used by the teachers union — which we all know rarely supports positive improvements in teacher accountability and other important areas. That group does not have all of Illinois’ citizens best interests at heart. Our kids matter most — and ALL of them should matter, not just the rich ones.
Kara — you make a good point. However, putting the state in charge of schools kind of freaks me out. Not to compare schools to corrections facilities (although some kids might disagree, haha), but the state is completely screwing up the prison system. My dad was a guard and had to deal with prisons that are double the intended occupancy. That’s not to say that’s what would happen with our schools, but I’d be afraid to put the state in charge of schools in fear of something similar happening. As far as equal funding, however, you’re absolutely right 🙂 Matt — thanks for the post! I’ll keep that in mind when I vote. Hope you’re enjoying your vacation!!