Several Illinois school superintendents have signed a letter, published in the Daily Herald, that can be seen as a strong push for local control of schools.
Unfunded mandates reduce local control, writes José Torres, superintendent of schools in Elgin-based School District U-46, the state’s second-largest district. He draws attention to several new laws, including ones that require all students to learn about the history of organized labor and to receive training in CPR. “While these bills address important topics, the fact remains that they cost precious resources that Illinois school districts cannot spare, and they impede on local control,” he writes.
Another way Illinois law has trampled upon local control was by creating the Illinois State Charter School Commission, which can overrule democratically elected boards of education and approve a charter school in a district where the board has rejected the charter. District U-46 and 17 other districts in the Fox River Valley last year got a taste of the commission when they all rejected a charter for an online school and faced a reversal by the commission.
Proponents of the charter school commission see elected school boards as quashing competition that would be brought by charter schools, as this editorial in the Chicago Tribune shows. They also say the Illinois State Board of Education doesn’t have adequate staffing to handle the review of charter applications in the hundreds of Illinois school districts.
But that’s kind of the point: Control should be local, not central. We believe local control is a bigger issue than any one law, such as the creation of the State Charter School Commission in Illinois. Therefore, when the Tribune writes, “Let’s hear more ideas on how to improve the commission, not end it. Illinois can be — should be — a national laboratory for charter excellence. That’s the way to bring the best schools here for students,” we have to chime in.
We do not believe experimenting on children, in any kind of “laboratory,” to throw the Tribune’s own words back at the editorial board, will create the best educational opportunities for the students of Illinois. In fact, any experimentation or laboratory suggests the bipolar opposite: we don’t know the outcome, for if we did, we wouldn’t have to build a laboratory to test various hypotheses, would we?
Therefore, not only is the Tribune suggesting unethical approaches to schools on the part of the Illinois General Assembly, but they are also contradicting themselves in the same sentence, mentioning “laboratory” and “best schools” in the same breath. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.
House Bill 4237, introduced by state Rep Linda Chapa LaVia, Democrat of Aurora, would take the commission out of Illinois law altogether, and Mr Torres and the other superintendents say they support it in full. The bill’s chief sponsor is now state Rep Sandra M Pihos, Republican of Glen Ellyn, but the bill itself was re-referred to the Rules Committee under Rule 19(a) a month ago, after passing the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee by an 11-1 vote in March.
Rule 19(a) is just a way of clearing the legislative calendar before adjournment. HB 4237 can either be kicked out by the Rules Committee or be resubmitted for consideration. Clearly, the superintendents are hoping for the latter action before the end of the month, when the General Assembly will adjourn.
“Local voters, taxpayers, and parents in our communities should have the ultimate say on whether or not a new public school (charter) opens in their city,” Mr Torres writes. “To be sure, charter public schools make sense in some communities and not in others; nevertheless, it ought to be left to local voters to decide.”
