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1 Excerpts from Blagojevich speech / Peoria Journal Star NATIONAL Excerpts
from Blagojevich speech By The Associated Press,
Following are excerpts
from Gov. Blagojevich's State of the State speech Thursday in "By embracing reform,
by showing the people we were prepared to change the way we earned their
trust, change the way we treat their money, change the way we create
jobs, change the way we deliver health care, change the way we give
people from all walks of life the opportunity to work hard, to get ahead,
and to build better lives, we've taken bold steps towards finally giving
the people of Illinois a government that's of them, by them and for
them." "But the battle
to bring down the cost of health care continues. That's why we are going
to keep fighting the big drug companies, we are going to keep fighting
the federal government, and we are going to keep fighting the FDA until
they give consumers in Illinois - and consumers across the nation -
access to the marketplace and an opportunity to safely and legally import
prescription drugs from " "Instead of being
an independent body that could regulate and support our schools, the
Illinois State Board of Education is like an old, Soviet-style bureaucracy.
It's clunky and inefficient, it issues mandates, it spends money, it
dictates policy, and it isn't accountable to anyone for anything." "To sum it up,
the Illinois State Board of Education has failed in its mission. It's
a burden to the taxpayers. It's a drain on local schools. It's an albatross
to our principals and teachers. It's not helping our children." ...and we know that
now we're caught in a vicious cycle, where the more rules and regulations
they impose, the more the State Board of Education can justify its own
existence. That's the cart leading the horse, the tail wagging the dog,
and patient treating the doctor, all rolled up in one." "I can't think
of any other place, not in business, not in sports, not in the media
not even in government, not anywhere that would allow this kind of system
to survive. Even the Berlin Wall eventually came down. Allowing the
State Board of Education to continue down this path is like throwing
money down the drain." "So according to
the State Board of Education, it takes 2,800 pages, all these rules
and regulations to run our schools, more than all of the rules of Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam, combined. This is a bureaucratic nightmare of biblical
proportions." "The quality of
a child's play says a lot about a society. It's great that our children
are so computer literate. But their day cannot start and end in front
of a screen. Children need to be active. That means running, and jumping
and skipping, and not just fast forwarding, downloading and instant
messaging." Gov
drops 'bomb' on Board of Ed BY DAVE MCKINNEY AND
LESLIE GRIFFY Sun-Times Springfield bureau, Taking aim at the sprawling
agency that governs the state's 892 school systems, the governor compared
the State Board of Education to an "old, Soviet style bureaucracy"
that is bloated, squanders taxpayer money and has run amok. "It's clunky and
inefficient, it issues mandates, it spends money, it dictates policy,
and it isn't accountable to anyone for anything," the governor
said in a blistering State of the State address dominated by his takeover
plan. By shifting most of
the board's administrative duties to a new Department of Education under
his control, Blagojevich predicted he could trim up to $1 billion in
waste over four years -- money that could be rechanneled
to classrooms. Those savings -- whatever
they end up being -- may be all that schools get because Blagojevich
refused to commit to injecting any more state funds into education next
year and completely sidestepped the financial crisis that has some school
districts on the brink of insolvency. The governor, who found
public dissatisfaction with the board in results of internal polling,
blamed the agency for sitting idly by when more than half of the $20
billion the state spends annually on education goes for social workers,
lunches, buses, administration costs and operations -- instead of directly
to instruction. "Like many unaccountable
bureaucracies, the Illinois State Board of Education turned into an
organization that exists more for the benefit of its own administrators
than for the benefit of the children of this state," the governor
said, noting salaries for 40 top agency executives averaged $90,000. Blagojevich also singled
out the board for allowing 34,261 errors on 2003 school report cards,
hiring too many consultants and public relations experts and failing
to prevent schoolchildren in The governor held up
an 18-inch pile of documents to illustrate the 2,800 administrative
rules he said the state board has written hamstringing school districts
on everything from school holidays to curriculum to hiring. While many of those
rules were the direct result of state laws, Blagojevich vowed to streamline
the requirements that he said eclipsed the combined breadth King James
Bible, the Torah and the Quran. "This is a bureaucratic
nightmare of biblical proportions," Blagojevich said to laughter. The broadside immediately
drew scorn from state schools Supt. Robert Schiller and a handful of
state lawmakers, who said Blagojevich was searching for a new whipping
boy while ignoring the huge spending gap between rich and poor school
districts. During Blagojevich's
82-minute speech, Schiller sat directly in front of the governor on
the floor of the Illinois House, shifting in his seat and appearing
red-faced. "What we've seen
here is a focus being placed on politics and power and not . . . how
we provide equity of funding for 4,000 schools," Schiller said,
noting how his agency was the latest "First, obviously,
it was the former governor. Then higher education got vilified. Then
there was a movement to Schiller accused the
governor of twisting numbers and facts. "All this rhetoric
is great. The public will gobble it up," said Sen. Miguel del
Valle (D-Chicago), chairman of the Senate Education Committee. "But
what are we really accomplishing here?" Blagojevich's proposal
won early backing from the state's two largest teachers unions, ex-state
schools Supt. Michael Bakalis and 15 legislators from both parties. "I've been around
several governors and the General Assembly for a long time, and I've
never seen a governor lay an atomic bomb on one issue like Gov. Blagojevich
did in his speech with respect to the State Board of Education,"
said Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale), who said he backed the governor's
concept but wanted more details. The governor's new department
would create purchasing authorities for schools to buy supplies, would
re-examine school construction costs and cut paperwork for districts
to obtain state assistance. Blagojevich pledged
to make the new agency work with 80 percent of the budget now in place
for the state Board of Education and with 60 percent of the board's
current work force, which now totals about 490 people. A shell of the
existing state board would remain as an education "think tank."
Senate President Emil
Jones (D-Chicago) said he wanted to take a closer look at Blagojevich's
proposal. He promised to work with the governor but predicted a difficult
legislative fight ahead. Steve Brown, a spokesman
for House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), said his powerful boss
was open to a "review" of the governor's proposal but had
not taken a stand on it. WHAT HE WANTS TO DO
Highlights of Gov. Blagojevich's
education initiatives: *Project Success --
reinstates and expands former Gov. Jim Edgar's program that pairs parents,
community leaders and service providers to identify and meet the needs
of local students at a cost of $5 million. *Certificate renewal
requirements -- proposes legislation requiring elementary school teachers
to complete half the requirements based on best practices to teach children
to read. *Teaching task force
-- brings teachers and education experts who started out in other careers
together to develop program to incorporate different experiences and
backgrounds into classrooms. *Childhood Hunger Relief
Act -- requires schools to provide breakfast to poor children. *Physical education
waivers -- ends practice of allowing schools to waive students from
physical education class. Suburban schools want
money -- not prospect of it BY DAN ROZEK AND LESLIE
GRIFFY Staff Reporters They'd rather see the
money than hear the promises. That's the reaction
of several suburban school officials, who said Thursday they're skeptical
that Gov. Blagojevich's proposal to gut the State Board of Education
will actually improve schools. Administrators said
they would have preferred to see Blagojevich commit new money now to
education rather than relying on savings he hopes will come from changing
state bureaucracy. Many of Blagojevich's revenue projections this past
year have fallen short. "The real issue
is, are you going to correct funding for schools in the state
of McKinzie said the proposed changes seemed designed not to help
local schools make ends meet, but to give Blagojevich more control over
education. "I think it's political, in that he doesn't have direct
control now." She's not necessarily
opposed to giving the governor that control, but chided him for contending
changes are necessary because the state board is performing poorly. Given all the different
tasks board staffers must do, McKinzie said,
"I think they're doing as well as can be expected. "If he wants control,
he should just do it. Let's not do it by beating up on everybody else.'' Supt. Phyllis Wilson,
who heads Joliet School District 86, thinks there's room for improvement
in the way the board oversees local districts. The amount of paperwork
districts must complete to meet board regulations has been rising, and
that's not how local educators want to spend their time. "Any time you have
an increased amount of paperwork, it takes away the focus on the children,''
Another suburban school
official, who asked not to be identified, contended Blagojevich was
aiming at an easy target, noting the board has little real power except
to pass on state money and legislative mandates to local districts.
By putting a new education
department under his control, the governor -- for better or worse --
would make himself directly accountable to
voters for the success of education funding and policy in the state. "That could be
a good thing,'' the suburban official said. In "We're really too
angry to talk," said one man, who like all the employees didn't
want his name used. "It was a power
grab," said another employee, who has been with the board for nearly
20 years. "Either [the governor's] an out and out liar or he's
got really bad information. One of the two."
While Blagojevich touted
the success of "If the Governor
lambastes state's school board Blagojevich calls agency
`barrier to progress' By Ray Long and Diane
Rado, Tribune staff reporters, In his second State
of the State address, the Democratic governor called on House and Senate
lawmakers meeting in a joint session to join him in ripping apart a
board that he condemned as a "Soviet-style bureaucracy" accountable
to no one and replacing it with a new cabinet-level Department of Education. "Even the Berlin
Wall eventually came down," Blagojevich said. "Allowing the
State Board of Education to be a barrier to progress is like throwing
money down the drain." The governor used the
bulk of his 86-minute speech to relentlessly hammer away at the board
as an "unwieldy monolith" sorely in need of reform. At one
point he held up 2,800 pages of rules from the board to govern schools
and said that was more pages than are contained in the Bible, Torah
and Koran combined. The red tape caused by the board, he complained,
was a "bureaucratic nightmare of biblical proportions." He blamed the board
for a litany of problems, from grade school children who can't read
to children getting sick on tainted school lunches. He also cited high administrative
salaries and consulting contracts as examples of excessive and wasteful
spending. But he never touched
on the issue that many local educators say is the most critical one
facing schools, the state's failure to overhaul an education-funding
system that has created widespread inequities and led to heavy reliance
on the property tax. "The Illinois State
Board of Education has failed in its mission," Blagojevich said.
"It's a burden to the taxpayers. It's a drain on local schools.
It's an albatross to our principals and teachers. It's not helping our
children." Noting the passion and
stridency in the governor's message, veteran Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale)
said it was the first time he had ever seen a governor use a speech
to the legislature "to drop an atomic bomb." Later, Blagojevich surrounded
himself with more than three dozen lawmakers and representatives of
the state's two major teacher unions in a display of solidarity for
his new cause, sounding a theme of widespread frustration with the board
and its bureaucracy. "Enough is enough,"
said Anne Davis, president of the Illinois Education Association, which
represents tens of thousands of Political fault lines
began to emerge only moments after the speech ended. Rep. Calvin Giles (D-Chicago),
chairman of the House Education Committee, pledged his support for Blagojevich's
proposals. "We are about to take on an entity that has been here
for years and ... has no accountability to anybody," Giles said. Sen. Miguel del Valle, the Chicago Democrat who heads the Senate Education
Committee, complained the governor's address avoided the school funding
dilemma, which has led to widespread disparities between school districts
and which most experts say can't be resolved without raising general
taxes. "All this rhetoric
is great," he said. "The public will gobble it up. They'll
accept it. But the bottom line is what are we doing for our school districts
in Signaling that Blagojevich's
program may get tough scrutiny, a spokesman for House Speaker Michael
Madigan (D-Chicago) said the governor already has the power to appoint
all members of the board and so could effect much of the change he wants
by altering its makeup. "The cold, hard
reality is the governor's office controls the system now and would control
it in the future," said Steve Brown, the spokesman. "I'm not
sure at the end of the day that Herb and Ethel's children are going
to learn any more quickly depending on what the management structure
is." After his speech, Blagojevich
defended his attacks against the board and insisted they were not mean-spirited.
That said, he acknowledged that he is "angry and outraged"
by actions of a board that had hampered efforts to give children a solid
education, and "maybe some of that spilled over." The centerpiece of the
governor's package is a proposal to remove virtually all major duties
of the board, an office created as an independent board by the state's
constitution. Blagojevich said he
envisioned creating a smaller Department of Education to perform the
duties of the board, which employs about 490. The board would be relegated
to something akin to a "think tank," with a superintendent,
the board members and a small support staff. Blagojevich outlined
a seven-point plan that called for streamlining the school bureaucracy
and pooling the buying power of school districts throughout Illinois
to cut costs for pencils, scissors and even health care, with the hope
of saving $1 billion over four years. He urged lawmakers to
help him build programs to improve reading, expand school breakfast
efforts, fight dropout rates, send more at-risk
children to preschool and to increase teacher training. He also outlined a series
of initiatives that include requiring schoolchildren to perform community
service, banning schools from selling junk food, revamping teacher certification
procedures, and eliminating a school district's ability to waive the
requirements for physical education. Another proposal was aimed at improving
food-safety inspections in schools. State Schools Supt.
Robert Schiller questioned whether the governor had the constitutional
authority to take the action, saying it was a back-door attempt to skirt
the mandates of the state's charter. Schiller suggested the
governor was continuing a pattern he had displayed since taking office
last year of picking some target to vilify, shifting from former Gov.
George Ryan to the General Assembly to other statewide officeholders
and now to the state school board. "It's our turn,"
Schiller said. "Go through the whole cycle of the past year. Today,
because I'm the CEO of the state board, I had the bull's-eye on my back." Senate President Emil
Jones (D-Chicago) is among lawmakers who have no problems with Schiller.
Jones said he is "personally satisfied" with the education
chief. Jones added that he
would reserve judgment on the Blagojevich proposal until he sees more
details, but he said he wants to make sure education would not be politicized
if a new education agency were placed under the governor. Senate Republican Leader
Frank Watson (R-Greenville) said he could work with the governor on
issues of streamlining the bureaucracy. But Watson questioned the tone
of the governor's attacks, saying they may produce a backlash. "He just was so
personal and so harsh and mean-spirited, and that was surprising to
me," Watson said. Arne Duncan, chief executive
officer of the Chicago Public Schools, said he "understands and
supports" the governor's desire to have more control of the schools,
saying it would reflect the Chicago model in which Mayor Richard Daley
has had control of the schools since 1995. But And Blagojevich said a full-scale
discussion on resolving funding gaps must wait until state government
shows citizens it can be trusted to be careful with their money. "I
just think we have a burden first before we can have that larger discussion,"
Blagojevich said. The management efficiencies
proposed by Blagojevich, such as central purchasing centers to cut costs
by buying in bulk, were well received by some educators, though The Blagojevich plan
did win support from two former state school chiefs, Michael Bakalis
and Glenn "Max" McGee. "It's a very political
job, whether it's independent or part of the governor's office,"
said McGee, who runs an elementary district in Schiller accused the
governor of ignoring facts and distorting data to make the board look
hapless. Though Blagojevich said
in his speech that reading scores of Blagojevich's criticism
of the many board rules and of a management system that targets only
46 cents of each education dollar into the classroom also was misleading,
Schiller said. The rules were written to comply with laws passed by
the General Assembly, Schiller said. Most of the non-classroom spending
is used for school construction and support services such as buses,
counseling, testing and school maintenance, he said. Some suburban school
administrators said it was wrong to blame the board for spending problems
when local school boards make most decisions about how to use school
money. "I just cannot
see the [state board] as the villain here. I've never seen the agency
as an obstacle," said Pat Masterton,
an assistant superintendent in Supt. Jerry Brendel of Woodridge District 68 said the board is far from
perfect, but he thought Blagojevich's attacks were excessive. "He had an agenda,
and his agenda was to get rid of the state board," Brendel
said. "And he used inaccurate data. Personally, I'm skeptical.
I don't see where these gigantic savings are going to come from." - - - Details of Blagojevich's
education plan The governor asked lawmakers
Thursday to overhaul the state's education bureaucracy, a move that
could redirect $1 billion over four years into classroom instruction,
he said. Here are key points: - Shift all administrative
powers and duties from the Illinois State Board of Education to a new
Department of Education under his control. - Streamline 2,800 pages
of administrative rules required for teacher certification and for school
districts to carry out various education programs. - Form a statewide purchasing
center to let school districts buy products from state-designated suppliers
and negotiate lower prices. Also, a statewide benefits-purchasing center
would be formed to negotiate better prices for school employees' health
insurance. - Provide $500 million
to build schools for the coming budget year, but cut construction costs
by 5 percent through various measures. Gov. Rod Blagojevich's
state of the state speech Thursday focused on education,
and his centerpiece for reform was to gut the semi-autonomous State
Board of Education, which controls more than $6 billion in education
spending. The governor wants to reduce the 593-employee state board
to a shell and give its duties to a Department of Education that would
be under his control. There was a time when
Blagojevich's bid would be seen as nothing but a political power grab.
Some will still see it that way. But Blagojevich has a chance of pulling
this off, for one reason: Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was handed control
of the What Blagojevich is
talking about may not be as dramatic as the The State Board of Education
hasn't really been asked to fix many problems. Trouble is,
it seems to create many problems. Blagojevich likened the agency to
"an old, Soviet-style bureaucracy," and he was on the mark. The state board was
handed responsibility to create an innovative teacher training and certification
plan--and failed, leaving thousands of teachers at risk of losing their
jobs. The board ignored warnings
that school cafeteria food had been contaminated by ammonia--leading
to the indictment last year of two board employees. When data collection
flaws showed up in last year's student achievement exams, they were
ignored until reporters wrote about them. The board routinely
complains that its budget gets squeezed--but it paid two lobbying firms
a total of $1.4 million over the past four years. It has 20 in-house lawyers
and access to the attorney general's office--and still spends $1 million
a year on outside legal counsel. The evisceration of
the State Board of Education was one of a slew of ideas Blagojevich
tossed out in his speech. He wants to assume responsibility for education,
and he set his own bar. He said the management changes under his plan,
which include consolidation of local school purchasing and employee
benefits management, can save more than $1 billion over four years. So let him have
it, and voters can hold him to the promise. There were complaints
that Blagojevich made no reference to changing the tax structure that
funds education, something many educators, and this newspaper, have
supported. But the fact is that tax reform--shifting school funding
from local property taxes to the state income tax--has been met with
the suspicion that much of the money would be lost to the education
bureaucracy while failing to benefit schools. All told, more than
half of education spending in the state goes to items unrelated to classroom
teaching--a percentage significantly higher then in comparable states
such as This is a chance to
prove the state can handle the responsibility for efficiently funding
schools--a chance to make a stronger case for reforming the school tax
structure. Blagojevich is going
to find resistance. There's no status quo like the education status
quo. The vote from this page
is to buck the status quo and give his ideas a chance. But some wish governor
had addressed other issues, too By DOROTHY SCHNEIDER
and ADRIANA COLINDRES of Copley News Service, SPRINGFIELD - Most Peoria-area
legislators agreed Thursday with Gov. Rod Blagojevich's contention that
the state's education system needs changing, but some thought he should
have covered more issues in his annual State of the State address. "I'm disappointed
that I didn't hear anything about the state of the state," said
Sen. Dale Risinger, R-Peoria. "He didn't talk about the budget.
He didn't talk about the shortfalls that we're having where the revenue
is not coming in. "I thought this
was going to be the state of the state on how we're doing right now,"
he added. The governor spent most
of the speech outlining his plan to create a Department of Education,
which would be accountable to his office and the Legislature, unlike
the current State Board of Education. During his speech, Blagojevich's
call for action was met with loud applause from both Democrats and Republicans. "I think a Department
of Education elevates education to the level it should be and would
make it more accountable to the Legislature," said Rep. Donald
Moffitt, R-Gilson. Moffitt and Sen. Bill
Brady, R-Bloomington, were mentioned by name in Blagojevich's speech
for past efforts to initiate education reform. Brady proposed a constitutional
amendment last spring to eliminate the State Board of Education and
create a new Department of Education. "Many of the provisions
he called for, I support," Brady said. "He did a very good
job of outlining it. He was a little harder than maybe I would have
been on the state board." Blagojevich made it
clear he believes that problems with "Well, the villain
of the day today was the State Board of Education," said Rep. David
Leitch, R-Peoria. Leitch and other legislators said they look forward to seeing
the details of the proposal because they see a need for reform in the
education system. Sen. George Shadid, D-Peoria, said he agrees with the governor that education
should be a top priority. "However, there
is certainly enough blame for everyone involved, which includes governors,
legislators, school administrators, teachers and parents," said
Shadid. "But the time has come to stop this 'blame game'
and for all parties to sit down and put aside their differences and
concern ourselves with educating the children of Rep. Mike Smith, D-Canton,
said: "It's very frustrating that our management system of education
in the state is so fractured without real accountability." At one point during
Blagojevich's speech, the governor picked up a stack of papers that
he said were 2,800 pages of the board's administrative rules. He referred
to them as a "bureaucratic nightmare." But Rep. Ricca
Slone, Some legislators said
they wanted to hear from the governor about issues besides education. Rep. Bill Mitchell,
R-Forsyth, said the governor did not address the economic problems of
central "We the jury, the
people of central Moffitt said economic
stimulus is very important in his district because the recent closure
of the Maytag plant in "If we're going
to improve our schools, it means having jobs that a person can raise
a family on that attract people with school-age children," Moffitt
said. "That's the only way we are going to maintain our schools." Schools
chief: I've got bull's-eye on my back
By Copley News Service,
"Nothing that was
said (in the governor's State of the State speech) addresses the issue
that we've got 80 percent of our school districts with deficits,"
said Schiller. "What we've seen here is a focus being placed on
politics and power and not the focus for the public to address how do
we provide equity of funding for 4,000 schools." Since Blagojevich became
governor a year ago, he has made it a practice to direct unfavorable
comments toward specific people or entities, Schiller said. The governor's
targets have included former Republican Gov. George Ryan, Democratic
Secretary of State Jesse White and the General Assembly. "Go through the
cycle of the whole year," Schiller said. "Today (Thursday),
because I'm the CEO of the state board, I had the bull's-eye on my back." The State Board of Education
hired Schiller in July 2002 to serve as In the speech, Blagojevich
accused the State Board of Education of not spending money wisely when
it comes to educating schoolchildren. But Schiller said the
governor placed an inappropriate level of blame on the agency. "We don't make
decisions at the State Board about what percentage of money goes to
the classrooms for instruction or for administration. The local school
board members do that and the legislators," he said. "I do
not, in any way, shape or form, as a representative of the state board,
determine how the money is used." He said the governor
has good intentions in wanting to make the education system better,
"but I think he's relying on advisers who are misinformed or ill-informed
or purposely providing a slanted point of view." The State Board of Education
shares the governor's desire to see student test scores improve every
year, Schiller said. But he added: "How
you improve education is research-based, it's systemic and it's sustained.
It's not an initiative du jour. It is not
randomly selecting initiatives." Earlier in the week,
Schiller said he thinks Blagojevich is trying to shift attention away
from the issue of "wholesale school finance reform," which
could be achieved by raising state income or sales taxes. Blagojevich recently
has said he will push proposals that would send a book every month to
every "If you're not
ready politically or economically to address the substantive issue,
then you create the alternative reality," Schiller said. "You
roll out ... initiatives of book of the month, the community service,
no sugar in the schools, good nutrition, parental responsibility, read
to your kid, et cetera, et cetera." The 1970 Illinois Constitution
created the State Board of Education, and if the governor wants to change
the board, he should "give the people of "As I understand
it, the governor wants the legislature to do a back-door revision of
the Constitution, to take away the privilege of the people of Janet Steiner, who chairs
the State Board of Education, said she was "shocked and awed"
by the governor's speech. "I refuse to get
into a battle publicly, like Mr. Blagojevich has chosen to do with us,"
she said. "I was very saddened, though, and disappointed and hurt
that I was never, ever called (and) never talked to the governor." "I was just as
astounded as everyone else. I'm very upset by that." At least one public
school superintendent was not sure Thursday what to think of the governor's
proposal to take away the State Board of Education's administrative
responsibilities. "I've never known
it any other way," said Springfield School Superintendent Diane
Rutledge. "Our experience with the State Board in Gov
attacks schools board, seeks hand in new agency
Teachers unions approve
of the overhaul; lawmakers are skeptical. By AARON CHAMBERS and
ANTHONY WATT, The Chicago Democrat
used his State of the State address to launch a brutal attack against
the State Board of Education, which now has that responsibility, and
propel his drive for fresh bureaucracy. He told a joint session
of the General Assembly that his proposed state Department of Education
would restore accountability to the governor and the Legislature
and local control over education. The governor likened
the State Board of Education to a Soviet-style bureaucracy that isnt
accountable to anyone for anything and should fall like the Blagojevich appoints
members of the State Board of Education, under Our local school districts
could do a lot better if they were set free from the bureaucratic dictates
of the Illinois State Board of Education, Blagojevich said, and instead
were allowed to make more decisions at the local level and rely more
on their own common sense. State Schools Superintendent
Robert Schiller and several lawmakers said Blagojevich, whose first
year was marked by constant tension with the Legislature, had simply
found a new adversary. Somebody has to be
identified, Schiller said. Today, the state board was identified.
If he wants to pick
on the state board instead of members of the General Assembly, I think
thats good for everybody, said House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego.
Cross added, Were
all big men and women. If he wants to pick on us, thats
fine. The State Board of Education
has long been a whipping post for Rockford Mayor Doug
Scott, a former legislator who attended the address, said widespread
displeasure with the board probably would help the governors plan.
Hes managed to pick
out something in the state board that has a lot of disfavor on both
sides of the aisle, Scott said. So it is likely that it could gain
some significant legislative support. The governor capped
his 87-minute speech with a news conference, at which more than a dozen
lawmakers and the presidents of the Illinois Federation of Teachers
and Illinois Education Association the states major teachers unions
proclaimed support for the plan. The governor said he
did not yet know how much money his plan would save. But if the plan
is successful, he said, were confident we can find at least $1 billion
that we can shake from that bureaucracy at the State Board of Education.
He said he was cautiously
optimistic that his plan would pass. But some legislators
were not so quick to embrace the plan. Rep. Ron Wait, R-Belvidere, said the governors plan failed to defer to local
interests. Whenever possible, Wait said, let the locals figure it
out. Sen. Miguel del Valle, D-Chicago, chairman of the Senate Education Committee,
called the plan a diversion from the greatest problem facing education
in Once again we found
another way to avoid dealing with the core issue: How we finance public
education in the state of Blagojevich discounted
the most commonly circulated proposal for balancing this disparity
an increase in the personal income tax to offset the burden on property-tax
payers, who cover the bulk of education spending. He maintains that
he will not raise the state income or sales taxes. Educators
give address mixed marks Some like the governors
ideas but not the approach. By CARRIE WATTERS, The governor, in his
second State of the State address, outlined Thursday an ambitious reading
initiative: Mail a book a month to every child in the state from birth
to age 5. Verkita Hatter, 10, likes books about fictional kindergartner
Junie B. Jones. Classmate Demitrius
Moore wants adventures. You dont know whats going to happen next,
the 9-year-old said. The governors 90-minute
remarks, which focused largely on education, made some local folks happy
and others concerned. At length, Blagojevich accused the Illinois State
Board of Education of failure. State Superintendent
Robert Schiller sat in the crowd of dignitaries at In Education problems are
enormous, he said: Its easy to take a simple approach and point a
finger. The governor wants to
replace the board with a department of education falling more directly
under his control. Now, the governors most direct hand over the board
is appointing members. For Belvidere
Superintendent Don Schlomann, the speechs
highlight was talk of continued state support for school construction.
Schlomanns growing district will have a $54.5 million referendum
on the March ballot to build schools. Schlomann hopes his district could be eligible for as much as
$30 million from the state. He knows its a long journey from the fanfare
of a State of the State address through the Legislature. In Barbour is a magnet
school with a language immersion program. He proposed a task force
to look at recruiting nontraditional teachers. Barbour also would benefit
if Blagojevich can secure a reading specialist in every school that
has failed to make adequate academic progress two years in a row. Things dont give you
quality education. People do, -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VOICES We would enjoy some
benefits. (The governor) indicated one of the reasons he wanted to do
that was to help streamline the process. I think that helps all school
districts, including ours. I think its a good, bold move from him,
and I think it will get some legislative support. Mayor Doug Scott There are a lot of
rules and regulations that are burdensome that could be eliminated by
implementing legislation immediately instead of waiting for a whole
new agency to be established, which could realistically take two years.
Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford I dont like Rep. Ron Wait, R-Belvidere Its going to be an
interesting process going forward. Rep. Dave Winters,
R-Shirland I am very concerned
about some of the initiatives I have heard today, especially when we
talk about the initial cost of some of those issues. ... The governor
came up with a lot of good ideas that in good fiscal years would be
great, but I really do not know how were going to fund them. Sen. Brad Burzynski, R-Sycamore This governor wants
to spend money that we dont have. To introduce new proposals that are
going to cost money just seems ridiculous when our revenue still is
below our needs to fund the existing programs that we have. Sen. Todd Sieben, R-Geneseo The focal point has
to be on the students, and every dollar we can generate as legislators
should go on our kids. Rep. Chuck Jefferson,
D-Rockford The governor had very
good points, and that is the basis. We need to start a dialogue about
the complete overhaul of the education system. Rep. Jim Sacia, R-Pecatonica Urges office of education
accountable to governor By DOUG FINKE, STATE
CAPITOL BUREAU Calling the Illinois
State Board of Education "an old, Soviet-style bureaucracy,"
Gov. Rod Blagojevich used his State of the State address Thursday to
recommend gutting the agency and creating a new Department of Education
directly under his control. By doing that, Blagojevich
said, over the next four years nearly $1 billion can be redirected from
the education bureaucracy to direct classroom instruction. "The Illinois State
Board of Education has failed in its mission," Blagojevich told
a joint session of the Illinois General Assembly. "It's a burden
to the taxpayers. It's a drain on local schools. It's an albatross to
our principals and teachers. It's not helping our children." In his nearly 90-minute
speech, Blagojevich made no mention of how he wants to deal with other
issues such as crime, economic development or human services. At a later
news conference, he said he will address other matters throughout the
spring legislative session. Blagojevich delivered
a blistering attack on the ISBE as the primary cause of "I have never seen
a governor lay an atomic bomb on one issue
like Gov. Blagojevich did in his speech," said Sen. Kirk Dillard,
R-Hinsdale. The Democratic governor
called the state board "clunky and inefficient, it issues mandates,
it spends money, it dictates policy, and it isn't accountable to anyone
for anything." Even though $20 billion
is spent on education each year in "The State Board
of Education's penchant for constant interference, its ever-changing
rules, its ever-growing number of regulations, the crushing amounts
of paperwork, handcuffs our educators, and far worse than that, shortchanges
our children," Blagojevich said. At more than 2,800 pages,
the board's administrative rules take up more space than the King James
Bible, the Torah and the Quran combined, he
said, adding, "This is a bureaucratic nightmare of biblical proportions." Blagojevich denied that
his plan is a power grab. "What this is, is a shifting of power away from an unaccountable bureaucracy
and shifting it to local school districts, to principals, to school
administrators and to teachers and parents," he said. The governor said a
Department of Education under his control could more efficiently administer
programs, and 40 percent of the state board's nearly 600 employees could
be eliminated. The agency would not
be eliminated, though, because that would require an amendment to the
Illinois Constitution. Instead, the downsized agency would focus on
education policy, and direct administration of education programs would
fall under the newly created Department of Education. Blagojevich also said
that money can be saved by creating a central purchasing unit to buy
school supplies, by centralizing benefits such as health insurance,
and by creating "regional administrative service centers"
that can perform accounting, auditing and bill-paying duties for schools. Immediately after the
speech, Blagojevich held a news conference and was joined by a number
of lawmakers from both parties, as well as the presidents of the Illinois
Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association. All voiced
support for the governor's plan. But while that kind
of support will be crucial to changing the state's education bureaucracy,
it does not mean Blagojevich's plan is a done deal. "It's always the
governor's prerogative to give a speech," said Steve Brown, spokesman
for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago. "The speaker's view
is that the governor controls the process now." Senate President Emil
Jones, D-Chicago, said he needs more time to review Blagojevich's proposal,
but cautioned "it's not going to be easy." "To repeal a lot
of laws that the legislators have passed over the years is most difficult,"
Jones said. "It's pretty hard
to argue with a lot of what he said, but obviously the devil is in the
details," said House Republican Leader Tom Cross of Cross said Republicans
also want to know how any money saved from dismantling the bureaucracy
will be channeled to schools. "One of the things
that concerns me is making sure that there is a fair distribution
of money, that it is not all geared to the city of Blagojevich said it
hasn't been determined how the savings will be divided among schools. Senate Republican Leader
Frank Watson said his members have long talked about streamlining the
State Board of Education. Watson, of Although Blagojevich
focused most of his attention on the education agency, he reiterated
other components of his education plan for this year. Those include: Providing
free books for all Reviving
the Project Success initiative created by Gov. Jim Edgar that was ended
by Ryan. The program uses
schools to help connect families with social services such as preventive
health care. Requiring
all high school students to perform 40 hours of community service as
a condition of graduation. Banning
the sale of junk food and soda in schools. National
Youth Leadership Council Applauds Governor Blagojevich's Proposal On Community Service
for Students Thursday January 15,
The essence of service-learning
addresses a dual purpose: educating In addition to promoting
the concept and implementation of service- learning in schools throughout
the United States, NYLC is engaged in a partnership with State Farm,
a company based in Bloomington, Illinois to develop a system for collecting
data on service-learning, and create much- needed annual reviews of
the state of service-learning. This project will be a key way to publicize
the progress of service-learning as a strategy to promote academic achievement
and citizenship. State Farm and NYLC are involved in other service-learning
projects directed at US schools which will be launched in February,
2004. "I extend my congratulations
on Governor Blagojevich's foresight to provide the youth of Service-learning more
directly connects schools with service by integrating it into the academic
curriculum. Studies show that effective service-learning has positive
impacts for all involved: it improves student academic achievement and
school engagement, school climate and teacher retention and promotes
positive school-community relationships. Information on service-learning,
including NYLC's annual national survey of
service-learning practice, Growing to Greatness, is available at www.nylc.org
. This report measures the national scale and scope of service-learning
and profiles the service-learning activities of particular states and
national organizations. NYLC has been at the
center of community service and service-learning program and policy
development since 1983. They convene the annual National Service-Learning
Conference -- last year 2700 participants, 50 states, 20 countries represented,
and have offered teacher training across the nation as national provider
for the Corporation for National and Community Service' s Learn and
Serve Program. For interviews with
Jim Kielsmeier on service-learning and the impact on Duncan
Cautious On Govs Schools Plan On Talk to the Schools,
WBBM Newsradio 780, ( On WBBM's
"Talk to the Schools" program, The governor believes
he can get more money into classrooms by cutting one-billion dollars
in spending he says is currently being wasted by the state Board of
Education. Local
lawmakers skeptical of governor's plan
By Chris Rickert,
DeKALB - Republican lawmakers expressed varying levels of skepticism
about the sweeping changes to education proposed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich
during his State of the State Address Thursday. State Rep. Bob Pritchard,
R-Hinckley, pronounced himself "very pleased"
to hear the governor put so much emphasis on reforming Still, like Republican
state Sen. Brad Burzynski of Sycamore, Pritchard
worried about where the state would find the money to fund new initiatives,
some of which include buying a book a month for every child until he
or she enters kindergarten and offering breakfast at school for poor
children. He claimed there remains
a $1.3 billion hole in last year's budget because strategies proposed
by the governor for bringing in revenue - such as selling off state
buildings - have not worked. "We've got to have
the money in hand before we spend it," he said. Joe Wiegand,
a DeKalb County Board member challenging Pritchard
in the March primary, said Blagojevich spoke of making fundamental changes
in the state's education bureaucracy that "we're all supportive
of." But he had doubts about
handing over control of that bureaucracy to the governor's office in
light of a culture in "He's actually
calling for more central planning and more central purchasing,"
Wiegand said. He pointed out that
the largest cost in public education is personnel, and said that the
only way to reduce it is through school choice - allowing private companies
or consortiums of public schools to compete for students and education
dollars. Democrat Bob Brown,
who will try to defeat either Pritchard or Wiegand
in November, said he was generally supportive of Blagojevich's plans
to centralize purchasing of school supplies to get lower prices, for
example, or to consolidate districts' accounting and auditing tasks. It might be better to
replace Blagojevich's proposal to buy books for young children, he said,
with a program that would allow people to donate their old books to
children who need them. "I'm glad that
education is now a top priority for the governor and his administration.
I would have liked to hear him say a little bit more about higher education,"
said the former fund raiser for In a press release,
Burzynski questioned the value of Blagojevich's plan to require
high school students to complete 40 hours of community service in order
to graduate. "On the surface
it sounds great, but you have to have organizations who
have the ability to oversee the volunteers," he said. "It
creates a burden on them and many will have to say no because they do
not have the manpower to oversee so many volunteers." Area
lawmakers, educators cautious BY PATRICK J. POWERS
AND ELIZABETH DONALD, An aggressive plan to
eradicate the Illinois State Board of Education provoked mixed reactions
Thursday from metro-east educators and legislators -- everything from
cautious optimism to down-right indignation. "He's taking the
bull by the horns with this and, sink or swim, he's going to take this
dinosaur on," said state Rep. Tom Holbrook, D-Belleville. "We've
tweaked education ever since I've been here, but this is probably the
first meat cleaver taken to it." Blagojevich's plan,
announced Thursday in Blagojevich didn't address
situations where the state board has ordered state control of local
school districts, such as in "If he's not satisfied
with the state of education in Mark and most metro-east
legislators said they support the governor's assertive proposal, but
local educators were quick to point out that a failing education system
isn't solely the fault of the state board. "I think it's awfully
narrow to lay the failure of the entire educational system at the feet
of ISBE," Said
The "The tone of the
speech was pretty harsh, personal and mean-spirited, but the attitude
of dismantling the State Board of Education and trying to do something
about the bureaucracy ... is something I can support," said Senate
Minority Leader Frank Watson, R-Greenville. Said state Rep. Steve
Davis, D-Bethalto: "This is my 10th year up here and every year
is the same story with education: more money, more money, more
money. I'm certainly open to do something to change the way its working. "(Blagojevich)'s
either going to be a hero or take the brunt of it if it doesn't work." Other initiatives announced
Thursday included plans to: Spend $26 million
to give a book each month to every child under age 5. Ban soda and junk
food in school vending machines. Ease the process by
which teachers become state-certified. Expand the Early Childhood
Block Grant to send 25,000 more at-risk children to preschool. While those programs
may be nice to see in metro-east schools, some local educators took
a more practical approach. "For me it's a wait-and-see proposition
until he presents the real education budget in February," Edwardsville
Superintendent Ed Hightower said. Area
educators divided over ISBE proposal
By Teresa Black and
Liza Roche, Courier News Staff Writers ELGIN Local educators
on Thursday gave mixed reviews to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's State of the
State message that puts education and the transfer of power away from
the Illinois State Board of Education on the front burner of his reform
efforts. Despite working for
the ISBE, Kane County Regional Superintendent Clem Mejia said that Blagojevich's
address gives him solid footing as "an education governor." "I'm a Republican,
but I'm an educator first," he said. "I agree with everything
that he said, and that's based upon 34 years in the system. "Parents and teachers
feel the bureaucracy along their neck and they pass that along to me,"
Mejia said. In his annual address
Thursday, Blagojevich said the ISBE, which operates separately from
the rest of state government, should be reworked into the overall state
system. Blagojevich's plan avoids
changing the state's constitution by reducing the board to a think tank
to study education policy. A new department of education would take
over the board's current responsibilities. The governor said the reorganization
could lead to substantial cost savings and better service for the state's
892 school districts. "I could easily
see the department of education and 22 or so regional offices under
the governor," Mejia said. 'Compliance police'
Created about 30 years
ago, the ISBE's charge was to be a "super
school board" that focused on policy, research and development,
said the regional superintendent. "But what has evolved
over time has been a compliance police," he said. "It has
become really more difficult to even do what we do here at this level." Mejia said the governor's
proposal is a good first step, but other educators said the ISBE is
not the cause of the state's educational problems. Although Blagojevich
criticized the ISBE for requiring too much paperwork, "The number
of employees have been significantly reduced," Arndt said.
"Also, I think we have a very effective state superintendent." Elgin School District
U46 Superintendent Connie Neale said she doesn't
have a strong opinion on whether the ISBE should be dismantled. But the services at
the state level need to be maintained or strengthened, she said. "The bottom line
is that any district in the state has to have the assistance and the
resources," she said. Neale, who worked in "But there's been
a lack of consistency, continuity the things districts need for support,"
she said. Funding not addressed
The issue of school
funding reform was noticeably absent in the governor's speech, a topic
promoted by some educators to reduce reliance on local property taxes. "We have a state
funding problem," Arndt said. "We do not have a state governance
problem." District 300 sent a
letter to the governor this fall urging him to call a special session
on funding reform. Meanwhile, education
initiatives Blagojevich touted Wednesday received mixed reactions locally. One proposal was to
provide children age 5 and younger with dictionaries and books each
month at a $26 million cost. "It takes a parent
or an adult to really teach a child," Arndt said. "You cannot
legislate good parenting." Arndt said he would
like to see more state or federal help in hiring additional teachers,
and he welcomed Blagojevich's idea of adding more reading specialists
to struggling schools. But Neale
said such proposals make her wonder how they'll be funded. "There's only one
pot of money," said Neale, adding that
when it comes down to state projects, or those by individual districts,
she opts for local control. " Local
reps agree with governor in principal
By DAVID HOTLE of The Register-Mail, SPRINGFIELD - Area legislators
gave a lukewarm response to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's State of the State
address in which he called for education reform, including the formation
of a cabinet-level Department of Education. Rep. Don Moffitt, R-Gilson,
agrees education should fall under the rule of the state as a way of
making the governing body accountable. Still, as he says, the devil
is in the details. Moffitt will not support
legislation to create the department on top of the State Board of Education.
Blagojevich criticized the board as being weighed down with bureaucracy.
Moffitt is concerned if the department is created, it would just add
another layer of bureaucracy. "The governor needs
to have people that are accountable to him," Moffitt said. "The
way the State Board of Education is run, there
are several layers of insulation between the state superintendent and
the people." He said the current
superintendent, Robert Schiller, is the most responsive. Other superintendents
have not been responsible at all, he said. Other items Blagojevich
called for, including mandatory community service for students and a
ban on junk food sales, Moffitt believes should be left to individual
districts. "We trust our school
boards and school administrations to make some very important decisions,"
he said. "I think we can trust them to decide what is put in vending
machines." "The governor has
an ambitious agenda, especially in terms of education," said Sen.
Dale Risinger, R-Peoria. "Many of his ideas have merit, but
we need to know how he plans to pay for them. With budget deficits again
projected to be $2 billion, we have a lot of work ahead of us to set
some realistic spending priorities." Risinger says he hopes Blagojevich doesn't plan to pay for the
programs with last year's sources of revenue - hiking more than 300
fees and taxes. Rep. Rich Myers, R-
Macomb, agrees changes are needed to the State Board of Education, but
he disagrees with the level of criticism of the SBE. "I think the condemnation
was overdone," Myers said, noting the idea of a cabinet-level department
of education originally was proposed by former Gov. Jim Edgar. It died
in the Legislature. He agrees more money
should be put into the classrooms. To that end, he does not agree with
several other requirements Blagojevich promoted, such as a book a month
for students. "I think we should
get the money into the classrooms before we worry about that,"
he said. Sen. John Sullivan,
D-Quincy, could not be reached for comment. Governor's
school pitch splashy, but deeply flawed
Gov. Rod Blagojevich
painted the Illinois State Board of Education as an enemy of the state's
students, parents and taxpayers Thursday, calling for a substantial
stripping of its regulatory powers in favor of a new agency that would
be more accountable to him, the Legislature and their constituencies.
Forgive the variation on the old saying, but is it possible In his State-of-the-State
address, the governor harshly denounced the State Board. He drew allusions
to "an old, Soviet-style bureaucracy." He labeled it "an
organization that exists more for the benefit of its own administrators
than for ... children," an "albatross" guilty of "constant
interference" that "handcuffs our educators." He accused
its employees of "wasting the people's ... hard-earned money"
on "high-priced contracts with "lobbying ... and public relations
firms." In short, the agency does little well, said Blagojevich.
"Even the Berlin Wall eventually came down," he said, and
so must the State Board. Wow. We'll give Blagojevich
his due on But allow us to take
issue with him on several others. First, he repeatedly claimed that
only 46 cents of every The governor trashed
the Illinois School Code as "a bureaucratic nightmare of biblical
proportions," longer than the Bible, Torah and Koran put together.
Yet he conveniently ignores the fact that it was the Legislature, not
the State Board, that made those burdensome rules law and ordered their
implementation. Does he really believe the Legislature as Super School
Board would be better? We're all for trimming
bureaucracy, for finding budget savings through consolidation of services
and for greater local control. So why then would the governor have two
educational bureaucracies (since he wouldn't outright abolish the current
State Board, to avoid constitutional problems)? And why then did he
in this same speech propose a number of new, local-control-robbing state
programs and mandates? Some may make sense,
like creating regional purchasing centers to help cut costs for supplies
and employee benefits. Others should have local educators scratching
their heads. For example, Blagojevich's Childhood Hunger Relief Act
would require schools to serve breakfast. He plans to order daily exercise
for kids. He would force high schools to make community service a condition
of graduation. There's even a no-soda-pop mandate. Won't some bureaucrat
have to issue guidelines and require paperwork to prove compliance?
Many of these have a significant price tag, in a state facing a potential
$2 billion budget deficit. If this governor only
ends up trading an old bureaucracy for a new one - or worse, adding
a new one - while squandering a lot of time, resources and hope in doing
so, what's the point? Even his $26 million plan to put a book a month
in every preschooler's household will require a bureaucracy to administer
it, won't it? His speech's length alone - more than an hour and a half
- doesn't bode well for someone who professes a desire to streamline
government. Meanwhile, this governor
again asks little of local educators. Want inefficient?
How about eight elementary districts feeding a separate high school
district in Finally, we believe
Blagojevich is fundamentally wrong in his analysis that "It would be easy
to keep the current system in place where no one blames us," Blagojevich
said. "Easy, but wrong." And that's
just it. At first blush, this is a play at the margins, an all-too-easy,
all-too-simple solution to a very complex problem. It's a gimmick. Educators
jabbing at governor's school fix, Blagojevich plan flawed, critics say By Stephanie Banchero and Tracy Dell'Angela,
Tribune staff reporters, Gov. Rod Blagojevich
contends that That is just one of
many flaws critics say they have found in Blagojevich's ambitious plan
to overhaul the state's education apparatus by stripping authority from
the State Board of Education and shifting it to a new Cabinet level
agency under his direction. Blagojevich used his
annual State of the State address to the legislature last week to rail
against the state education agency that he called unresponsive, wasteful
and a "Soviet-style bureaucracy." In blunt language, he blamed
the board for a host of problems, including limited dollars flowing
into classrooms, lagging student test scores and an avalanche of rules
and regulations that has buried school administrators. But a wide cross-section
of school officials around the state said that the case against the
board that Blagojevich laid out is riddled with distortions and displays
a lack of understanding about who is responsible for making sure school
money is spent wisely and children are learning. In making his case that
the board was incompetent, Blagojevich said only 46 cents of every school
dollar in Blagojevich attacked
board bureaucrats for writing 2,800 pages of rules that districts are
required to follow. But the rules were composed only to enforce laws
mandated by the General Assembly, the critics stressed. Another broadside from
the governor involved the recent release by the board of school report
card data that was marred by 34,000 errors and led to the erroneous
declaration that hundreds of schools were academically deficient. The
errors, however, were made by local school districts, not the board,
which simply compiled the data it received. Blagojevich also blasted
the board for paying the top 8 percent of its staff an average salary
of $90,000 annually. The governor failed to mention that the average
salary for the top one-third of his staff was $90,351 per year, state
records show. Some school administrators
predicted that the governor's program would weaken local control of
schools, cost districts money, create more bureaucracy and do nothing
to benefit children. `Power trip' "I think the guy
is on a power trip," said Greg Merrill, principal of The state board oversees
an $8 billion annual budget and sets broad educational policies on student
testing, teacher certification and curricula matters. The nine members
of the panel, all gubernatorial appointees, select the state superintendent
of education. All of the current members were in place when Blagojevich
took office. On Friday, Blagojevich
told the Tribune editorial board that his plan would allow more money
to flow into classrooms, enabling schools to boost student performance
on achievement tests. "In the current
form there is a barrier to being able to reform and make schools better,"
he said. "And until we make a dramatic change with the state board,
that barrier will continue to exist." Blagojevich contends
he can save schools $500 million over four years by setting up a centralized
purchasing system, which would leverage buying power to negotiate steep
discounts on everything from glue to automobiles. But the state already
offers such a service to districts through the Central Management Services
Department, which Blagojevich oversees. Most districts, however,
do not participate in the program because they find it more expensive
to buy small-ticket items, such as paper, pens and pencils. Additionally,
many school officials say they prefer to spend local property tax dollars
to support local businesses. Michael Rumman,
director of Central Management Services, said schools don't participate
mainly because the program is designed for bulk purchases. The new program,
he said, would offer deals in smaller quantities. Still, Rumman
acknowledged that the governor's $500 million savings claim would be
realized only if nearly all of the state's 891 districts participated
and each one was able to lop 5 to 15 percent off the cost of buying
supplies. Many local school officials
say they aren't convinced. "History has proven
that state purchasing agreements haven't proven the most efficient,"
said Donna Baiocchi, executive director of
Ed-Red, a group that represents 110 districts in Cook, There is a strong tradition
of local control of schools in District officials decide
how much they will spend on schools and where they will spend it. They
pick their own textbooks. They select their own reading and math programs.
And they decide how long the school day will be. The state board has
limited power and serves mainly to implement state and federal laws
and dole out state and federal money. Blagojevich dwelled
on figures that show that less than half of every school dollar goes
to classroom instruction. But he brushed over other data that show a
large portion of the rest--31 percent--is dedicated to services like
busing, testing, health and psychological services, counseling and social
work, curriculum development and library services--functions that many
consider vital to school operations. More than 9 percent
of school spending goes toward school construction and repairs. "If the money is
not going into the classroom, it's not an Illinois State Board of Education
problem," said Pat Masterton, assistant
superintendent in Rules required by legislature Blagojevich also blamed
the board for imposing so many rules it had created a "bureaucratic
nightmare of biblical proportions." But the board is required to
write the rules by the General Assembly. When legislation was passed
about the use of student protective eye gear, for example, regulations
had to be drafted to implement the law. Senate President Emil
Jones (D-Chicago), while keeping mum on Blagojevich's reforms, said
the over-regulation charge by the governor was a bum rap. "One
of the things the governor talked about--the 2,800 pages of rules and
regulations--is all part of laws passed by the legislature," Jones
said. Board officials acknowledge
that their operation is not flawless and concede that mistakes were
made in some of the areas that the governor cited in his indictment
of the agency. Blagojevich took the
board to task for failing to safeguard the health of students by allowing
ammonia-tainted chicken to end up on school lunch tables in 2002. Board
employees knew the poultry was foul but did little to stop its distribution.
The board took no action until a Tribune investigation revealed the
problem. As for the recent report
card debacle, board officials may not have been responsible for the
errors but did not act quickly to correct them after they were discovered.
Only after news reports surfaced about faulty information in numerous
report cards did the board allow districts to make corrections, a process that could
take months. "We will acknowledge
that our hands are not totally clean," said Ron Gidwitz,
a member of the State Board of Education and its former chairman. "We
acknowledge we made mistakes. We are not perfect." Blagojevich had an uneasy
relationship with the board even before he took office last year. While
he was running for office, the board in 2002 appointed Robert Schiller
as the state superintendent even though Blagojevich had asked it to
defer action until after the election. Schiller said Friday
that he has never had a lengthy conversation with Blagojevich, though
he has tried. He said he has sent countless e-mails to the governor's
staff, hand delivered letters and made many phone calls over the last
year. "I wanted to talk
to him about the state of education in Health plan stirs concerns The state's top educators
also are worried about the governor's plan to create a state-run $1-billion-a-year
health plan for all current and retired school employees. At present, districts
manage and fund their own health care programs for current employees,
but the benefits for retired employees--except those from Glenn "Max"
McGee, the former state superintendent of education who now runs As part of the reform
package, the governor also floated a plan that would require schools
to offer breakfasts if at least 40 percent qualify for free or reduced
meals. About 300 schools in 100 districts would be affected. The federal
government would pay for the food, but districts argue it would cost
them far more than the $1 million the governor has set aside for the
program. "You'll have to
hire personnel who will have to pack the breakfast, be on duty when
children are eating. Someone will have to clean up afterward,"
said Amber Harper, superintendent of Schiller said he plans
to stay out of the fray while lawmakers and educators debate the governor's
plan. "It matters not
that we are under siege," he said. "We must carry on with
the business of educating children. My job is to lobby for our children
and make sure we do everything for them that is
humanly possible." Some
say Blagojevich went too far in criticism
By KEVIN MCDERMOTT,
Schiller, But minutes later -
specifically, by Page 9 of the speech - no one was smiling. Certainly
not Schiller. He sat directly in the front row (surrounded by
hundreds of fellow state officials and countless more Illinoisans watching
from their television sets), as Blagojevich, in often-sarcastic wording
and tone, all but blamed Schiller personally for the failure of "There is no one
single villain, (but) the problem clearly begins at the top, with the
Illinois State Board of Education," said Blagojevich. As Schiller
watched, stony-faced, Blagojevich proceeded to savage Schiller's agency
for more than an hour, comparing it to "an old Soviet-style bureaucracy"
and "the "I had a bulls-eye
on my back," a stunned-looking Schiller later complained to reporters.
But given Blagojevich's
emerging political style, Schiller said, "somebody has to be identified
as the villain." This time, it was about
the educational system. But some say Blagojevich's approach to other
topics during his first year in office - including political enemies,
state workers, and most of all, the Legislature - employs an unusually
potent political strategy of . . . well . . . name-calling. Legislators spend money
"like drunken sailors." State employees left over from the
previous administration are "wasteful bureaucrats" and "cronies."
People who complain that Blagojevich is dedicating too much governmental
attention to "The intention
is to have somebody to attack," said state Sen. David Luechtefeld,
R-Okawville, who was angered by Thursday's
speech despite his own concerns about the performance of the State Board
of Education. "I agreed with him on some of the issues . . . but
I just felt like the tone was completely out of line. "He does this,"
Luechtefeld added. "He does it to us in the Legislature, he does it to other groups. Somebody else is always
the bad guy, and he's always the guy on the white horse who is going
to save us all." Blagojevich's defenders
say he is merely living up to his central campaign pledge: To shake
up and reform an entrenched state government in which both parties have
become far too comfortable with power. "What you're seeing
is a governor coming into a system that hasn't been working, and offering
direct, honest criticism," said Blagojevich spokeswoman Cheryle
Jackson. "It's not personal. Maybe some find it kind of stunning
because they haven't heard it in Speeches like last week's
might seem especially odd to people who have spoken one-on-one with
Blagojevich, whose style in such settings is as warm and friendly as
his speeches are merciless. After Blagojevich's "drunken sailors"
comment last year, for example, he appeared genuinely surprised by reporters'
suggestions that some of his allies in the Legislature might take it
personally. "In his mind, I
think he separates what he says in public from how he treats people
in private," said Mike Lawrence, acting director of the Public
Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a former
aide to ex-Gov. Jim Edgar. "He thinks he has to do this (in his
speeches) to achieve his goals." Public appeal Blagojevich supporters
like state Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Collinsville,
say Blagojevich's political style, uncomfortable as it might make some,
is an integral part of his method of appealing directly to the voters.
If political politeness falls by the wayside, they say, perhaps it should.
"He has to make
his case directly to the general public," Hoffman said. "That's
what he was doing (with last week's speech). That's what he's always
done." Added Jackson, Blagojevich's spokeswoman: "To get to
change and reform, you have to give an honest assessment. The truth
can sometimes be harsh." In any case, Blagojevich's
take-no-prisoners style of public speaking seems largely to have worked.
He spent most of his first year in office last year publicly lambasting
the Legislature, and was rewarded by cowed lawmakers who gave him a
state budget with pretty much everything he asked for in it. A
recent media poll show he still enjoys strong public support.
"So far, it's worked
for him," said Luechtefeld, the Okawville
Republican. "(But) I have to believe that over time, that kind
of way of doing business is going to catch up to you. Time will tell."
Area
lawmakers agree with speech By Kurt Erickson, Pantagraph, On Thursday, in the
midst of his second "State of the State" speech, Gov. Rod
Blagojevich stopped speaking in order to retrieve an 18-inch stack of
paper from behind the podium. The 2,800 pages of school
rules and regulations were a visual example of why the governor wants
to remake the state's education bureaucracy. "Every minute teachers
waste filling out forms is time they could be spending preparing themselves
to educate their students," Blagojevich said. It was just one example
the governor pointed to as he launched his attack on the Illinois State
Board of Education. As Blagojevich begins
his battle for control over the state's schools, he knows he's not alone.
His fight will come
mostly from the 500-employee agency that has been in place since 1970.
But in laying out his
case for reform, the governor offered ample evidence that things must
change. For example: Problems with school
cafeteria food inspections were linked to 42 illnesses by students in
-- Despite the state's
fiscal crisis, the State Board of Education renewed a $240,000 lobbying
contract with a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm headed by Republican
Haley Barbour. -- Although the board
has 20 attorneys on its staff, as well as representation from the -- The state board has
some of the highest paid bureaucrats in state government, topped by
state schools superintendent Robert Schiller's $225,000 salary. -- And a
recent round of school report cards, meant to show how schools are performing,
were riddled with errors affecting an estimated three-quarters
of all "To sum it up,"
Blagojevich railed in his speech, "the Illinois State Board of
Education has failed in its mission." State Sen. Bill Brady,
R-Bloomington, said the governor is on the right track -- a rare statement
for someone who previously has locked horns with the Democratic governor.
For more than three
years, Brady has been introducing legislation that would abolish the
constitutionally created board of education, arguing that it wastes
money and is not accountable to lawmakers and the governor. "The State Board
of Education is an independent nine-member board that oversees and administers
the many programs and policies affecting Larry Daghe,
who was elected last year as the regional schools superintendent for
McLean, DeWitt and But the longtime educator
said some of the problems were created by the General Assembly and past
governors. For example, Daghe points out that the rules and regulations Blagojevich
held up Thursday were crafted in response to laws approved by lawmakers.
"You shouldn't
point a finger at something you helped create," Daghe
said. Schiller responded similarly.
As part of his plans,
the governor wants to create several more programs, such as one that
would require high school students to complete 40 hours of community
service as a condition of graduation. That program alone likely would
create at least 30 more pages of regulations, Schiller said. Daghe also said many of the rules are in place to make sure
that taxpayer funds are being spent correctly. "People want to
know where their dollars are going," Daghe
said. "People want accountability." The agency also has
been hit with staff cuts, resulting in local school districts having
a harder time getting their questions answered in "The state board
was too fat," Daghe said. "Now,
maybe they are too lean." Although Blagojevich
received modest accolades from most lawmakers for his proposal, legislative
leaders hint the governor's task will be tough. Senate President Emil
Jones, D-Chicago, said the governor failed to address the issue of inequities
in the state's school funding formula. And he said he doesn't
want to change for change's sake. "I don't want to
shift one bureaucracy to the other," Jones said. In the House, Minority
Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, said there are other pressing issues facing
the state, including medical malpractice, property-tax relief and transportation.
"There are some
things that weren't said," Cross said. In any case, lawmakers
have time to mull over the situation. The General Assembly doesn't meet
again until Feb. 3. Education plan 'right issues, the
wrong target' Gov. Blagojevich's criticism
is misplaced, leaders in field say By JOHN O'CONNOR of
The Associated Press, January 17, 2004 SPRINGFIELD - While
giving Gov. Rod Blagojevich high marks for some of the initiatives in
his State of the State Address, education experts say his withering
attack on the State Board of Education was misdirected. The quasi-independent
education body Blagojevich wants to make into a Cabinet agency answerable
to him should not be blamed for all of the ills he described, educators
and business leaders said. "It's the right
issues, the wrong target," Jeff Mays, president of the Illinois
Business Roundtable, said of complaints about how education money is
spent. Others pointed out that
while Blagojevich vowed to cut endless bureaucracy in a new Department
of Education, it is the Legislature and governor - not the school agency
- that create the laws that must be carried out. And Blagojevich still
would have to wrestle with ever-increasing federal regulations regardless
of the agency's form, they say. One of the key points
Blagojevich hit was that only 46 cents on the dollar actually makes
it to the classroom. The state board said it's
closer to 80 cents when counting support services and buildings needed
for classes. Mays said local districts
decide how to spend the 38 percent of school funding that the state
provides. Districts also control the rest of the money, which comes
mostly from local property taxes. "The state board
has been the straw dog in this issue," Mays said. Rare is the lawmaker,
teacher or parent who hasn't had frustrations with the state board,
with its frequent turnover in superintendents and routine changes in
policies and procedures. The board, Blagojevich
said in his speech, "is like an old, Soviet-style bureaucracy.
It's clunky and inefficient, it issues mandates, it
spends money." In fact, Blagojevich
said the board only knows how to ask for more money, not propose innovative
ideas. That's not the view
of Maggie Janssen, principal of State assistance to
help teachers match their lessons to the standards - which are the basis
for statewide testing - ended when the Board of Education's budget was
cut, Janssen said. Teachers continue the work for free, she said. "We've picked up
so many things on our own the last few years, we can't do it anymore,"
Janssen said. "Finances are the issue, more than what you are going
to do about the state board." Blagojevich's audience
of legislators laughed and clapped Thursday when he held up a foot-high
stack of papers - 2,800 pages, he said - of agency rules that schools
must follow. But the rules Blagojevich
pledged to whittle down came in response to the Legislature and the
governor. The board has to write rules for virtually every law in the
820-page school code, state Superintendent Robert Schiller said. One of Blagojevich's
proposals Thursday - a requirement that high school students perform
40 hours of community service to graduate - probably will require 30
pages of new rules, he said. Once
an agency of more than 800 employees, the state board has cut its staff
by one-third in the last 18 months.
Half of its 495 employees are paid with federal funds, agency spokeswoman
Karen Craven said. Even if Blagojevich
takes it over, he'll still need a large staff to deal with federal requirements,
said Timothy Shanahan, director of a literacy center at the He praised the governor's
plan to hire reading specialists for low-performing schools. And Blagojevich's $26
million proposal to give a book a month to every child from birth to
5 drew kudos from Keith Anderson, whose Homework
Hangout in Parents are "going
to be in the privacy of their own home," Reaction cool on education plan By ANNE COOK, BEMENT Area educators
say they support some ideas introduced by Gov. Rod Blagojevich Thursday,
but most don't see his program as a panacea for the ills plaguing state
education. They also question the
value of Blagojevich's proposal to put education overseers in the governor's
office, making the independent Illinois State Board of Education virtually
powerless. "I don't think
eliminating the state board is a particularly good idea," said
Darrell Stevens, superintendent of the Bement
school district. "There's a good reason the writers of the (state)
constitution wanted independence for the board. A lot of education's
problems now are a result of cuts in their department and the difficulty
of implementing contradictory, ineffective and inefficient mandates
from the Legislature signed by the governor." Gene Amberg,
superintendent of the "In some cases,
education needs reform, but shifting the bureaucracy isn't the best
solution," Amberg said. "This looks
like shifting the bureaucracy. To be fair to the state board, many of
the mandates we're dealing with don't come from them." "I think it would
take a constitutional change to put education under the governor's auspices
and it takes a long time to amend the constitution." Amberg also said he doesn't think that idea will fly with state
legislators. Champaign Superintendent
Arthur Culver also urged state residents to be patient. "My concerns are
about financial resources and also that, as he embarks on changes, we
understand that it's going to take time before we see results,"
he said. "It's not going to happen overnight. It could take three
to five years, probably five, before we see results across the board. "I hope as he restructures,
he takes the time to involve people who have been a part of the process
at the state level," said Culver, referring to state board personnel.
"They know the history and have the experience. To shut them out
would be a huge mistake." Blagojevich attacked
the state board for many shortcomings, citing its administrative and
regulatory failures and blaming it for the fact that His proposal would strip
the state board of all administrative powers and responsibilities and
shift them to the governor's office, reducing the board to think-tank
status. It's not clear what legal changes that action would require.
Amberg said he's waiting for more clarification
from Last year, the administration
recommended dissolving the Regional Office of Education structure, but
that idea went down in flames. Todd Pence, superintendent
of the "We need to see
numbers," Pence said. "It's hard to tell where everything
will end up." He's especially concerned
about the attack on the state board and implications for local control
of education. "There's some bureaucracy
and waste there, but you find that in any state agency too," he
said. "I don't see how you can hold the state board accountable
for the problems in education. To say the state will determine what's
best for us might be arrogant. " "It's clear that
he's not going to be sitting with a staff and making isolated decisions,
but will get involved with those in the field to make new programs and
improvements, and I'm glad to hear that," Culver said. "Any
time you involve people at the grass roots, you enhance the quality." Culver also commended
Blagojevich for being willing to assume the responsibility and accountability
for education in the state, a commitment he hopes will take the governor's
office a step farther. "It leads me to
believe if he's accountable, he's going to provide districts with the
resources they need to deliver high quality education," he said. Other area superintendents
said they want to find out a lot more about how the state plans to pay
for the reforms. Last year, state payments to schools were delayed while
the Blagojevich administration debated what to do about the fiscal crisis,
rumors abounded that schools wouldn't get all their money and that experience
has made administrators cautious. Amberg, for example, is still waiting for funds from "I think it sounds
like a great deal for all schools, but the problem is, will he have
the money to do it?" said Steven Hamilton, superintendent of the
Atwood-Hammond school district, of Blagojevich's program. "It's a fantastic
idea, but the $10,000 they propose to give each high school to coordinate
the program isn't going to do it." Amberg doesn't oppose that idea, but he's not sure it should
be made a responsibility of the schools. "Teaching children
about volunteerism is really a family activity," he said. "To
create a requirement may cause more problems than it might solve. I
like the notion, and a lot of high schools require it, but my concern
is if kids are forced into it, it's unlikely to be beneficial. Volunteerism
should come from the heart, not a mandate. "Who would evaluate
it, decide whether the public service was appropriate and whether
the students actually did it? I suspect that idea will create a cottage
industry of its own." Amberg likes the governor's commitment to early childhood education,
but he has a lot of questions about his proposed ban on soda and junk
food from school vending machines. "None of us want
kids to be obese and sick, but the junk food mandate will cause additional
work and policies," he said. "There are mandates in this program." "It's difficult
to be against some of these proposals, but what bothers me is instead
of talking about funding issues that have plagued schools for 50 years,
we're talking about these new proposals," Stevens said. "We're
talking about issues not central to what schools need." He cited his district's
situation as an example of issues that should be addressed. Last year,
the Bement board made drastic cuts in personnel to address budget
shortfalls. Members also looked at consolidation with the "The new district
would have a budget of $6 million and enrollment of about 900 students,"
Stevens said. "The state's paltry incentive to consolidate: $500,000
over four years. That's woefully inadequate. You're asking people to
close buildings. And last year the governor tried to cut the incentive.
That put a chill into what should be a strong effort to provide incentives
for consolidation. You're asking people to do a lot." Other Blagojevich proposals
that caught educators' attention included: Imagination Libraries, a program that would
send 12 books a year to every preschool child in the state expected
to cost $26 million if every child in the state participates. Project Success, a program created by former
Gov. Jim Edgar and eliminated by George Ryan that links families with
state agencies to help their children succeed in school. Cost: $5 million. Reading Specialists, a $15 million program
that would put reading specialists in every school that has failed to
make adequate yearly progress based on youngsters' test scores and has
been placed on early academic warning. Expansion of the Illinois Tech Prep Program
to prepare students for vocational careers. It currently costs the state
$5 million. "We need more information,"
Amberg said. "We need the state board's
services, and we need to know what will happen if it's dismantled. No
one's happy with the reams of paperwork, and if those processes are
streamlined, that would be wonderful." He also endorses Blagojevich's
plans to form state purchasing centers to buy supplies and equipment
at bulk prices negotiated by the state and to form a benefits purchasing
center to negotiate and reduce insurance costs for districts. "These ideas, capitalizing
on economies of scale so everyone pays the lowest possible price for
their gallons of Elmer's Glue, are interesting," Amberg
said. He said there are no
easy answers and he's expecting interests in "Accountability
in education is a very emotional issue," Amberg
said. "We all want children in Schools
leery of governor's plan Districts face loss
of some authority By Tracy Dell'Angela,
Tribune staff reporter, To make his sweeping
education reforms work, aides to Gov. Rod Blagojevich Friday acknowledged
local school districts likely must cede control over construction and
employee health plans while also shouldering new costs for retired teachers'
medical coverage. Many local school districts
are focusing on these elements of his proposed education reforms, despite
the initial attention over his plan to strip power from the State Board
of Education and create a new Cabinet-level education agency under his
control. Blagojevich told lawmakers
Thursday that the package would eliminate waste and free up money for
districts to spend on classroom instruction. Yet the loss of local
control--while increasing the burden on local property taxpayers--raises
questions about the governor's savings claims and his ability to sell
the program to lawmakers. In a 90-minute meeting
Friday with the Tribune editorial board, Blagojevich said he is convinced
his proposals will save local school districts so much money they will
enthusiastically embrace them. But leaders of many
districts had the opposite reaction, arguing the governor's plans will
create a burdensome new state bureaucracy and will ultimately raise
local education costs. "We want more local
control, not less," Blagojevich said. "We want a less oppressive
entity over local school districts, not more. We want more choices for
local school districts, not less. And we are counting on human nature.
... We think they will volunteer in large numbers and choose to do this." Yet critics of the plan
say it's galling for the state to start exerting authority over local
schools--ostensibly to cut costs--when so little of the money that funds
public education comes from the state. "As school administrators,
we've been hearing all the things we've been doing wrong for the past
20 years," said Pat Masterton, assistant
superintendent of Though the proposals
would clearly affect suburban and Downstate districts, it was not clear
whether One of the reforms'
most controversial aspects is the forming of a state-run health plan
for school employees, both active and retired, that would cost $1 billion
a year. It would serve at least 130,000 teachers, 40,000 dependents
and about 22,000 retired teachers who now buy health insurance from
the state. Local districts now
manage and pay for their own health-care programs for employees. Some
districts are self-insured, some have created regional health-care cooperatives
and others buy a variety of programs from private health insurance companies.
But suburban and Downstate districts do not now have to pay for retired
teachers' health benefits, an amount that totals $250 million a year
statewide. That cost is borne by state funds, payroll deductions from
active teachers and premiums paid by retirees. Under the Blagojevich
plan, the state's responsibility for that cost would shift to local
districts--an idea pushed hard last year by the Illinois Education Association
and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, two large unions that backed
Blagojevich's 2002 campaign. Union leaders have argued
that a centralized health-care system would fix an insurance program
for retirees that is financially shaky, in part because the state
has not been adequately funding it. A health-care proposal similar to
Blagojevich's surfaced in the legislature last spring but died in committee
after strong opposition from school districts. A state task force appointed
by former Gov. George Ryan studied the issue and concluded a centralized
program would be difficult to carry out because "local control
over the active teacher medical plans would be removed." And depending
on the level and types of benefits offered, these centralized programs
could end up costing districts millions of dollars more and result in
dramatic year-to-year increases in health-care costs, the study found. But Blagojevich estimated
that his centralized program would save local districts $80 million
to $180 million a year. Two of his top aides
said these savings can be realized only if all suburban and Downstate
districts are required to take part. Brenda Holmes, the governor's deputy
chief of staff for education, said the plan would not allow districts
to "opt out." Still, Michael Rumman, director of the state's Department of Central Management
Services, added that school districts would get a choice of health programs
to offer employees. "What we're simply
saying is we'll negotiate different types of plans, create a menu for
you, then you're free to choose whatever level of coverage you deem
appropriate within your school district," Rumman
said. "I think the savings are going to be very compelling in that
area." Supt. Jerry Brendel of Woodridge District 68, a former president of the
Illinois Association of School Business Officials who studied the health-care
issue in depth, said the governor's plan is misguided and his cost estimates
are flawed. "His projected
savings were totally wrong," he said. "Local school districts
would no longer have control over our care benefit package. We will
no longer have the option of being self-insured. These are touted as
cost savings, but it will end up costing the districts more." A state lobbying organization
that represents 110 school districts in suburban Cook, The state's new proposal
for managing school construction projects also was greeted with skepticism
by many local school leaders. In announcing his reform plans, the governor
said they would offer schools more flexibility in the way they spend
state construction grants and save them up to $160 million over four
years in project-management costs. What he didn't make
clear initially was that the savings would be realized only if districts
turned over the management of all major school construction projects
to the state Capital Development Board, which would charge a flat 1
percent of the project's total cost. School districts now manage their
own projects or hire outside contractors, and state grant rules let
them set aside up to 6 percent of construction costs to cover management. In Elk Grove Township
District 59, Supt. Robert Howard said he's skeptical about turning over
control of these projects to the state. "That would be
a major concern. It really rests with local control and decisions,"
he said. "One concern is would there be a boilerplate model for
all local districts?" Last March this page
published a harsh assessment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's first months
in office. He deserved it. His administration was disorganized and he
had made some terrible hiring decisions. In tone and substance, far
too much emphasis was being placed on public relations and far too little
on the details of governance. The Blagojevich administration
still struggles with some problems. It often is slow to communicate
with lawmakers and constituencies. It fails, sometimes, at the follow-up
that marks a professional organization. But the governor is
mastering a learning curve, a substantial one at that. He has recognized
some of his early errors, he has used the power of his office to his
advantage, and his administration can mark its first year as a success. Blagojevich couldn't
help but benefit from the contrast with the corrupt and profligate administration
of former Gov. George Ryan. One of the most significant achievements
of the new governor's first year is the ethics reform package he signed
on Dec. 9. The new law is intended to disrupt the cozy, cash-and-carry
world of legislators and lobbyists in To his credit, Blagojevich
believed that his core campaign promises meant something, including
a promise not to raise state income or sales taxes. And though some
Democrats may bristle at that, it did force the state to make a serious
effort at spending restraint as it worked out of a $5 billion budget
hole. Blagojevich used a word
that hadn't been heard in Case in point: The legislature
was in one of those frenzies where, as the late Secretary of State Paul
Powell liked to say, you could "smell the meat a-cookin'."
Lawmakers had jumped on the negotiations over a gambling bill as a chance
to haul in more money, make more cronies wealthy and fund more state
spending. Blagojevich cut off the negotiations. He said there would
be no gambling bill. No, that was not business
as usual. Blagojevich doesn't
have many friends in But he still should
follow his instincts, and lawmakers would be wise to recognize that
in most clashes they've had with the governor, he has been right. They
haven't curbed the urge to spend like drunken sailors. They haven't
recognized that the culture of corruption in this state is an affront
to the people who put them in office. They haven't recognized that every
time they whine that the governor doesn't spend enough effort on their
care and feeding, his public standing ticks up another point. Blagojevich still makes
mistakes, usually when his political instincts fail to match his reform
rhetoric. The most glaring was the unseemly rush to sign legislation
designed to give telecommunications giant SBC an advantage over its
competitors. That was business as usual. But after a poor start
the administration has produced some pleasant surprises. The most pleasant
is that Blagojevich has shown more discipline on spending and more focus
on changing the bloated and corrupt operation of state government than
we expected. He will need to stay
disciplined. Early projections are that the state will face a $2 billion
deficit for 2004-2005. The state will not be able to resort to some
of the one-time fixes it used to balance the budget for this fiscal
year. The state should not resort to dumping more taxes and fees on
business to make ends meet. One of the drawbacks
of success is that expectations rise. Last year, as they hustled to
produce their first spending plan, Blagojevich and his budget director,
John Filan, made a promise: Give us a year to dig into how the
state operates, they said, and we'll truly transform government. OK, year's up. Local
educators laud state funding ideas Zhanda Malone, Edwardsville Intelligencer, Governor Rod Blagojevich's
State of the State Address Thursday garnered positive reaction from
local education leaders. District 7 Superintendent
Ed Hightower praised the governor for working to improve education funding.
"First, I want
to commend the governor, as well as local legislators, on their extreme
hard work on the budget and local education," Hightower said. Hightower said it is
obvious that Blagojevich cares about education. "His (education)
incentives are positive," Hightower said. Hightower said he is
waiting to see what the governor's plans are for special education funding.
"I'm concerned
and will take a wait-and-see attitude on the special education funding,"
Hightower said. "That's where a bulk of the funding occurs."
Hightower declined to
offer comments on Blagojevich's plan to replace the Illinois State Board
of Education. "I have no comments
on that at this time," Hightower said. "I have to hear more
about his plans for replacement." Hightower was also pleased
to hear that Blagojevich would like to like to increase funds in school
construction program. "I think that's
a positive sign, particularly because we are lobbying very strongly
to continue the construction program," Hightower said. "The
program helps ease the burden off of taxpayers." Madison County Regional
Superintendent Harry Briggs was able to hear the governor's State of
"I was was invited by the governor to attend," Briggs said.
"I support the governor an his initiatives."
Briggs said he is pleased
to hear that the governor wants to reinstate and expand "Project
Success," former Gov. Jim Edgar's program that pairs parents, community
leaders and service providers to identify and meet the needs of local
students. "The Project Success
was a very good program," Briggs said. Briggs also said he
was happy to see the governor address the issue of making sure students
have more healthy foods available. "I believe we need
to get sodas out of the schools and bring in healthier alternatives
like fruit juice and water," Briggs said. Briggs said his office
is looking forward to working with Blagojevich. "I am willing to
work with the governor to resolve some of the education issues,"
Briggs said. Blagojevich
begins well on education The current elementary
and secondary education program in So, Gov. Rod Blagojevich
should get high marks for taking a bold step in Thursday's State of
the State message to change the system. While the solutions offered
during his 90-minute address were neither complete nor perfect, the
speech did serve to raise the profile of a serious issue that must be
addressed. Blagojevich's made the
Illinois State Board of Education the scapegoat for education's woes
in the state, saying they operated like an "old, Soviet-style bureaucracy."
That may seem like an
overstatement, but consider these facts: The state board was given the
responsibility to create a teacher training and certification plan --
and failed. The board ignored reports that data collection flaws showed
up in last year's student achievement tests until reporters started
writing about them. The board has spent $1.4 million hiring lobbyists
over the past four years and spends $1 million a year on outside legal
counsel, despite employing 20 in-house lawyers and having access to
the attorney general's office. Despite that spending,
the board consistently complains about its budget being squeezed. The state board of education
is one of the primary reasons that less than half of the state's spending
on education is directly related to classroom teaching. Fire the state board?
We think they've earned it. Blagojevich's proposal,
however, stops short of doing away with the state board. He says he
wants to keep them around as a sort of think tank to explore long-term
educational issues. Eliminating the state board would require a constitutional
amendment, and Blagojevich may not want to take that task on quite yet.
But he should. This bureaucracy should not be allowed to linger. The governor wants to
replace the state board with a Department of Education that reports
directly to him. The governor believes he can create a department that
is better and less costly than the current system. That's a fine idea.
Then the voters can
hold the governor responsible for the education of our children. The governor's education
plan, while bold in respects to the state board of education, was disappointing
in two other aspects. The governor proposed
16 initiatives during his speech. By our count, only five -- hiring
more reading specialists, training teachers to incorporate different
backgrounds in their teaching, eliminating physical education class
waivers, preventing dropouts and expanding an existing program that
helps students move into vocational programs -- will have a direct impact
on classroom teaching. The others include some money-saving ideas worth
considering and some school/social programs that are questionable. The
issue in The governor also ignored
the "big elephant" on the table -- school funding. True school
reform won't occur until Blagojevich may well
be thinking that in order to change the school funding program, he first
needs to fix the bureaucracy so more tax dollars are finding their way
to the classroom. That's a solid plan, and the governor should be encouraged
to take that stand. While there are a host
of issues facing The governor's speech
is a good starting point to solve a problem that has been ignored for
too long. His bold ideas are worthy of serious consideration. ISBE
only a fraction of school problem Editorial by Tom Martin,
Editor, Gov. Rod Blagojevich
put all his political eggs in one explosive basket Thursday in his State
of the State address. Blagojevich spent most of his 90-minute speech
talking about education and how he wants to strip the Illinois State
Board of Education of regulatory powers. To make his point, he
held up the 2,800 pages of ISBE regulations. Further, he said only 46
cents out of every dollar spent on education in Blagojevich proposes
to reduce the ISBE to a think tank, eliminating 40 percent of the ISBE's employees. He would create a Department of Education,
under his direction, to administer education programs. Eliminating the
bureaucracy and waste would save at least $1 billion, according Blagojevich. The inefficiency of
the ISBE could be seen recently in the Chicago Tribune's analysis that
found 34,261 errors in 2003 School Report Cards. Those mistakes led
to 368 schools being listed incorrectly as failing. Blagojevich is not the
first point to problems with the ISBE. Former governors Jim Edgar and
George Ryan made similar claims. Edgar even proposed a constitutional
amendment to create a Cabinet-level Department of Education whose leader
he would appoint. The proposal died. Edgar faced a Democratic House
and Republican Senate. Blagojevich, a Democratic
governor, is working with a Democratic House and Senate. That, along
with this being an election year, could help the governor accomplish
much of his plan. According to a State
Journal-Register story, Along with having a
clear agenda, Schiller has a point. Many of the state's schools, including
several in the Blagojevich stayed away
from the issue of school funding. And while his plan to dismantle the
ISBE is bold and has merit, the education problems in Blagojevich should remember
the Legislature created those regulations that the ISBE adminstrates.
Through the years, the Legislature has piled on the requirements. A
checks and balances system must oversee every new mandate. Therein lies
the need for paperwork and addition of layers of bureaucracy to do the
paperwork. A change in structure
will not accomplish what a change in philosphy
would. Giving school districts more money and allowing them to operate
with fewer mandates should be the goal of any educational change. Still, Blagojevich deserves
credit for proposing to attack bureaucracy and waste. Shaking some of
that administrative money free for local school districts will help.
- GOV. Rod Blagojevich
has unveiled a sweeping plan to overhaul the states education system
that deserves serious consideration. The cornerstone, as
presented in his State of the State address Thursday, is a proposal
to shift authority for oversight of the states school system from the
semi-autonomous Illinois State Board of Education to a new Department
of Education accountable to the governor. Under this plan, the
ISBE would focus on long-range planning and research while the new department
would take over day-to-day management and policy responsibilities. The ISBE was created
in 1975 after the 1970 Illinois Constitution shifted responsibility
for elementary and secondary education from an elected superintendent
to an appointed board. The board, which appoints
the state superintendent, consists of nine members appointed by the
governor with the consent of the Senate. Members serve six-year terms. Blagojevich says this
relative autonomy, designed to insulate education policy from political
interference, has instead fostered poor performance and a lack of accountability.
He notes, for example, that the boards 2003 Report Cards contained
nearly 35,000 errors affecting 75 percent of the states schools. Blagojevich prefaced
his lengthy criticism of the ISBE as an inept and costly bureaucracy
by noting that there is no single cause for the states failure to
provide a better education for its children. He warns that establishing
the new department will not solve all of the problems in our schools
and improvements will not come overnight. He is right. No amount
of bureaucratic shuffling and reorganization will solve problems arising
from inadequate funding and the impact of societal issues on classroom
performance. Efforts to address those
issues must continue, regardless of what may become of the governors
current proposal. Failure to do so will only extend the long and sad
litany of the states educational shortcomings that the governor outlined. He lays much of the
blame some of it unfairly on the ISBE and cites numerous examples
that he says show it to be an old Soviet style bureaucracy that is
part of the problem rather than the solution. While the governor makes
a compelling argument, it cannot be known without seeing the detailed
legislation whether his proposal in all its aspects should be adopted. There are certainly
risks in a plan that, while promising accountability,
could give special interest groups greater influence over educational
policy and politicize what should be a neutral arena where the needs
of children are foremost. Still, the governor
is right to focus at this early stage of his administration on the need
to improve the quality of education in This is a serious proposal
that deserves serious and careful consideration. Sun Times, Gov. Blagojevich's plan
to put school construction contracts under state control is ripe for
corruption, Sen. Peter G. Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) warned Monday. The idea
is merely "a way for him to raise money from construction contractors''
who would profit from new state contracts to
build schools, Fitzgerald said Monday. The proposal poses "an enormous
increase in the possibility for corruption'' and "it's a bad idea,''
the outgoing Republican senator said. Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff
said the governor's plan would put the issuance of such contracts under
the state's Capital Development Board, which has strict standards for
bidding and awarding contracts. Those rules should ensure that jobs
are awarded based on the best bids, not political favoritism, she said.
In addition, Ottenhoff said, the idea should
reduce construction costs and relieve districts of the burden of overseeing
the management of construction projects. Governor's
book idea latest chapter in excess Pantagraph Editorial, 1/20/04 If a program to mail
books to the home of every Moreover, even though
the program might help many children, we are not convinced it is the
most effective use of the state's limited financial resources. Blagojevich is promoting
the program with Senate President Emil Jones. It would not require specific
legislative approval. However, the Legislature does have to approve
the governor's budget, from which funding would flow. The idea is to send
each newborn home with a book and continue mailing books monthly for
five years -- a total of 60 books. The objective is to get children
into the habit of reading early and reach families that might not be
regular library visitors. But without a commitment from parents to read
the books with their children, how will it work? Besides, it isn't the
state's job "to offer every child a personal library" -- as
Blagojevich described the program. Parents would have to
sign up for the program and pick books from a list provided by Dolly
Parton's Imagination Libraries, which would administer the
program. Any new parent could participate, even people who can afford
to buy their children books every week. Money could be better
directed to bolstering programs at libraries, particularly reading programs
aimed at pre-schoolers. Such programs might
even include sending a book home with a child. Since 1988, the public
libraries in But the state should
focus on its primary responsibility: education, including libraries.
Leave the feel-good programs to someone else. Look
Around, Guv, There's Waste
Everywhere Opinion by Jim Muir,
One day last week I
found myself an hour from home and doing what I always do when I'm bored
and driving -- I fiddled with the radio looking for something to entertain
me. Cruising the AM dial
-- that's what guys who are 50 do -- I happened upon Gov. Rod Blagojevich's
second State of the State address that was only moments away from beginning.
What better way to amuse myself, I thought, than to listen to the governor
tell us how good we've got it and how much better things are going to
be during the coming year. So, I settled in to
listen and perhaps even learn a few things about what might happen during
the current legislative session. If you're thinking that I'm easily
entertained, you're exactly right. Approximately 15 minutes
into the speech Blagojevich started talking about his desire to see
changes, drastic and sweeping changes, in the Illinois State Board of
Education. The deeper Blagojevich
got into the speech the sharper his criticism became about the board.
At one point he likened that body to a "Soviet-style bureaucracy"
that was "clunky, inefficient and unaccountable." And those
were some of the nicer things he had to say. As I drove on the governor
continued to lambaste the State Board of Education and every time I
thought he was about to change gears and move a different direction
he would come up with a fresh set of facts to justify his call for a
complete overhaul of the education system. Blagojevich even used props,
dragging out a two-foot-high stack of papers he said represented the
rules and regulations the board imposes on school districts. Some of the points the
governor made were sobering, like the fact that According to the governor,
For the entire one hour
drive home, on and on the governor went, railing on the State Board
of Education and at the same time calling for the creation of a new
Department of Education that would answer specifically to the governor's
office and the General Assembly. In the end, I thought
Blagojevich made some valid points but I also thought his speech bordered
on overkill. The governor spent 70 minutes of his 90-minute speech blasting
and embarrassing the board. In fact, after listening
to the speech it would seem that in the governor's mind all the ills,
misspending, patronage and bureaucracy in the state of Some of us know otherwise.
It seems that the governor is speaking out of both sides of his mouth
when it comes to doing away with "business as usual" in While hammering throughout
his first year in office about the need to slash the state payroll,
Blagojevich hired a dozen people, mostly Democratic campaign operatives,
to act as community liaisons for the Illinois Department of Transportation.
The dozen new hires,
each with a job title of local agency liaison, make $622,300 in combined
annual salaries alone. Adding in fringe benefits pushes the cost to
more than $800,000. Let me add in an observation here. Any time a person
has a job that contains the word "liaison" in the title, it's
a pretty good bet that person doesn't have a real job. And speaking of doing
away with bureaucracy, seven of the new hires contributed $7,500 to
Democrats, including $2,550 to the governor. At least one of those hired
also volunteered for the Blagojevich campaign last year. Who says doing
volunteer work doesn't have some rewards? IDOT officials said
the liaisons' duties are to meet with local officials and talk to local
community groups about specific road projects and the way state road
funds are disbursed. At the same time IDOT
announced about the 12 new liaison positions, it also announced that
the state has hired several public relations firms to perform some similar
educational duties. One firm will be paid $2.2 million over four years
to publicize the reconstruction of an interstate near And then of course there
is the $1.7 million wildflower project that is also under the direction
of IDOT. This beautification program, which is the brainchild of first
lady Patti Blagojevich, is doling out funds throughout the state to
plant wildflowers. I love flowers, but on the long list of needs in
I'll bet if the governor
would look around Springfield, that is when he's there, he would see
that there are other agencies beside the State Board of Education that
are also "clunky, inefficient and unaccountable." But will
we have to wait for his next State of the State address to learn what
he's doing about it? Board of Ed says Blagojevich used 'props,' twisted facts By Rosalind Rossi, Besieged State Board
of Education members Wednesday accused Gov. Blagojevich of using phony
"props'' and twisted facts to attack the state board and deflect
attention from a school funding gap that lawmakers have refused for
years to fix. In their first public
meeting since Blagojevich skewered their agency in his State of the
State address, all eight board members -- including the board's four
Democrats -- expressed everything from serious reservations to outright
anger at the governor's plan to put the bulk of the state board's responsibilities
under his control. Republican board member
Gregory Kazarian contended that Blagojevich
concocted "props" to illustrate his charge that the state
board created red tape of "biblical proportions'' in writing a
State School Code that was longer than the King James Bible, the Torah
and the Quran combined. State board officials
charged that the 1-1/2-foot version of the School Code Blagojevich pointed
to dramatically during his Jan. 15 address had been printed off the
Internet, creating hundreds of extra pages with only a few words on
them. Kazarian and others said the board merely writes rules, based
on laws passed by the Legislature. The school code is only 790 pages
"if you buy it in the bookstore,'' Kazarian
said. "[Blagojevich]
created a prop,'' Kazarian said.
"He just decided not to let the facts get in the way of
a good story. ... The focus of the governor is a red herring and unsubstantiated
by the facts.'' Blagojevich spokeswoman
Abby Ottenhoff conceded later that the School Code Blagojevich
had used was printed off the Internet, but added: "I'm not sure
how that's phony. That's how many people would access
the information.'' Even "700 pages
is still a great deal for schools to have to wade through,'' Ottenhoff
said. In addition, she said, every law "doesn't necessarily need
100 pages of interpretations and requirements and forms. That's what
we've seen and that's what is part of the problem.'' Asked why Blagojevich
didn't just get a bound School Code from the After their attacks,
board members took a break so state Education Supt. Robert Schiller
could hold a press conference. Schiller ripped into
the governor, charging that "education was being hijacked by politics''
and that Blagojevich's plan did nothing to improve education in Board members raised
similar points Wednesday, and added that they feared putting the board's
responsibilities under Blagojevich, a Chicago Democrat, would shortchange
Downstate kids, strip school districts of local control over their own
spending and rob local businesses of the economic engine that schools
provide. Democrat Judith Gold
said she worried what would happen if Blagojevich was replaced someday
with "a right-wing governor. Stranger things have happened.'' Board member Janet Steiner,
a Democrat whom Blagojevich appointed board chairwoman, said afterward
she was "shocked'' Blagojevich did not tell her in advance of his
plans. "I was totally
blindsided,'' Steiner said. "I thought
he would give me a heads-up and he didn't at all.'' Ottenhoff said the governor's proposal would finally make one
person accountable for the state's education system, and allow districts
to save money by pooling their purchases. In reaction, Ottenhoff
said, the state board "has done everything but
accept responsibility and come up with ideas for making the system
work.'' Legislators assess governor's speech By Karen Berkowitz,
Pioneer Press Area legislators Friday
offered different perspectives on the stinging rebuke of the State Board
of Education that was delivered by Gov. Rod Blagojevich last Thursday
in his State of the State message. Speaking of the governor's
speech during a "legislative outlook" breakfast, state Rep.
Julie Hamos, D-18th, said it reflected a now-familiar style in which
Blagojevich seeks out an enemy to vilify. "As a legislator,
it feels like he finds convenient enemies and then focuses his attention
on those enemies," said Hamos, during
the legislative breakfast of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce. When Blagojevich assumed
office last January, "we (in the Illinois General Assembly) were
the enemy and he treated us like he was the outsider and we were the
insiders" practicing business as usual, Hamos
said. In the fall, Blagojevich
took on "He did a good
job of raising those issues, but it was the convenient enemy of the
moment," Hamos said. According to press reports,
Blagojevich used his 86-minute State of the State address last Thursday
to assail the State Board of Education as an "unwieldy monolith"
and a "Soviet-style bureaucracy" in need of reform. He called on lawmakers
to shift the administrative powers and duties of the State Board of
Education to a cabinet-level department under his control. "I don't know whether
the State Board of Education has anything to do whatsoever with whether
any child can read," said Hamos, who
also deemed it unfair to blame the State Board for the share of education
spending that goes into the classroom, when so little of that money
comes from the state. "I am not standing
up for the State Board of Education, because I don't think anybody does,"
she said. In fairness, though, of the $20 billion that is spent on education
throughout "Can they do it
with fewer than 2,800 pages of rules and regs?
Maybe. They did reduce their bureaucracy from 700 to 500 in
just the last couple of years." State Sen. Jeffrey Schoenberg,
D-9th, said State Education Superintendent Robert Schiller is an "unwanted
heirloom" that the Blagojevich administration inherited from predecessor
George Ryan. The State Board, under Ryan's direction, appointed Schiller
during the final months of the administration rather than work with an interim superintendent and defer the appointment
to the next governor. Bad to worse "People often feel
more comfortable with their own hand-selected team in place," Schoenberg
said. "By the nature of the personalities involved, the relationship
(between Blagojevich and Schiller) went from bad to worse in a very
short period of time. That is what precipitated" the remarks that
some have interpreted as "excessive criticism." U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky,
D-9th, said the governor's proposal to bring education under the umbrella
of his administration means he is also assuming responsibility for the
results. "The fact that
he is moving the problem inside the administration means he is setting
himself up to be accountable for the outcome, which actually may lay
the groundwork for real reforms that yield real results," said
Schakowsky, speaking to an audience of 75 at the Hilton Garden Inn,
1818 Maple Ave., Evanston. "What he is saying
is that now - like Mayor Daley in Said Schoenberg, "I
don't think any of us appreciate how burdened the schools are by the
lack of federal commitment from the Bush administration in funding the
No Child Left Behind legislation. "One thing I took
away from the address was a tacit acknowledgment that because the federal
government is squeezing the state's harder in health care and education,
we have to find a way to get it done," Schoenberg said. "But blaming the
Bush administration outright is not necessarily the best course of action
for (Blagojevich) while he is working to forge a bipartisan coalition."
Hamos said she did not envision tax reform during Blagojevich's
first term because of his stated pledge to not raise taxes. "What is going
to come out of the No Child Left Behind Act
is that so many schools will be on the underperforming list that it
might drive a crisis in the future," Hamos
said. Schakowsky had just
returned from Moderator Jonathan Perman, the chamber's executive director, asked whether " Cook County Commissioner
Larry Suffredin, D-13th, who was involved
in U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt's 1988 campaign in Illinois but is supporting
Howard Dean in 2004, said, "I would hope a state this big, in the
middle of the country, would play a role in presidential politics, but
we are two weeks too late in the calendar to be one of the pivotal states."
Small groups The breakfast afforded
those in attendance an opportunity to meet with lawmakers in small groups
to hear their thoughts on such topics as the federal deficit, immigration,
public transit, work-force housing, tollway
financing, health care for small business, property tax classification
and county budget reforms. Suffredin said there is fear that the reassessment in Suffredin said the assessment increases reported by his Rogers
Park constituents during a series of meetings ranged between 20 and
150 percent. The tax bills are scheduled to arrive less than two months
before the 2004 November election. The Cook County Assessor
has been lobbying the Illinois General Assembly to enact a 7 percent
annual cap on assessment increases to soften the blow. The proposal
has sparked a raft of counterproposals, amendments and questions that
could snag the measure during spring session, the commissioner said.
"If the General
Assembly doesn't act, I think (the Cook County Board) will take some
action using its home rule powers to try and make some adjustments to
clarify some of the inadequacies of the current system," Suffredin
said. Belvidere reception warm for governor, cool for plan Students complain that
his education plan lacks specifics. By Carrie Watters, I came all the way
from Blagojevich was there
to tout his education plan, a complex subject for teens. He wants to
replace the independent Illinois State Board of Education with a state
agency directly under his control. At one point, he joked that he pumped
his muscles, a la the Whenever he seemed to
lose his audience, hed throw in jokes or references to musical groups
or pop culture. He proclaimed himself the only one of The teens greeted him
warmly as he shook hands with kids in the lowest bleachers before his
speech. Signs sprinkled in the crowd read Governor B, Welcome to B-Town
and Rod 4 President. Not that the hour in
Adam Stark, 18, told
the governor that he planned to be a father one day and wanted to make
sure his children had top-notch teachers. He was worried that Blagojevichs
efforts to ease the certification process could put unqualified teachers
in the classroom. Dont
worry, Blagojevich responded. By making it easier for them
to be certified, they would have more time to be better teachers. One parent wanted to
know how an agency under his direct control would be less bureaucratic.
Blagojevich told her that elected officials would be held accountable
by voters. Blagojevich recited
a list of state board failings, including poor student achievement across
the state and inefficient bureaucracy. The governor has been particularly
critical of 93 pages of bureaucracy required for teachers to maintain
certification. The problems begin
at the top with the State Board of Education, Blagojevich said. The state constitution
in 1970 provided for a board that was independent of party politics.
The board is appointed by the governor, and that board appoints a state
superintendent. The idea was noble,
Blagojevich told students. But the idea hasnt worked. The governor, who is
in his second year, also pushed other initiatives unrelated to his bid
for systematic overhaul. Sixteen-year-old Jessica Losure
didnt laugh at all the governors quips as she tried to follow the
talk. And she didnt buy Blagojevichs no-junk-food dictate. We need a little junk
food to get us started, Jessica said. Rebekah Kumar, 16, had mixed feelings as she headed back to
class from the rally. He threw out a lot
of stats when he was talking, she said, but he didnt explain what
he was going to do about it. School board, Blagojevich do battle By Nicole Ziegler Dizon, Associated Press, CHICAGO - The State
Board of Education began an offensive Wednesday against Gov. Rod Blagojevich's
plan to gut the agency, calling it a political power grab that ignores
the most basic issue facing Illinois schools - inadequate state funding.
As Blagojevich flew
from one end of the state to the other to rally for his plan to dismantle
the board, its members tried to poke holes in the education plan the
governor outlined in last week's State of the State address. "This is about
power," state Superintendent Robert Schiller said. "It's about
politics. It's not about addressing issues of the day: How do we help
schools have the adequacy of funding, the equity of funding so they
can move forward?" In his State of the
State speech, Blagojevich likened the board to an "old, Soviet-style
bureaucracy" and said he could save $1 billion over four years
by moving its duties to a Department of Education under his control.
The board is an independent agency with members appointed by the governor.
"The choice here
is very simple. If you're satisfied with the state of education in The governor says his
plan would save money by eliminating many administrative jobs, cutting
fees for school construction and consolidating the purchase of health
plans and school supplies at the state level rather than the district
level. Members of the State
Board of Education spoke about the governor's proposals before beginning
their regular meeting in Some board members said
they feared the governor's plans would take decision-making power away
from local schools. They also said elimination of a board split by law
between Democrats and Republicans could politicize school issues. "To me, it just
seems like a loss of accountability and usurping local control, and
we're very concerned about that," board Chairwoman Janet Steiner
said. Others took issue with
some of the governor's claims, such as his oft-repeated reference to
the "2,800 pages of rules" created by the board to govern
local schools. Board member Gregory Kazarian
said that was true only if the rules were printed 10 words to a page,
and he added that the Legislature and Congress write the laws the rules
are meant to enforce. "They just decided
not to let the facts get in the way of a good story," Kazarian
said. ------------------------------------------------------------ NATIONAL Items compiled from
Tribune news services, The Schools
turning $$ back to feds Data also show state
is sitting on $42 million By Jennifer Toomer-Cook, As The state last September
failed to spend, and therefore lost, $228,000
in federal funds for schooling refugees, State Office of Education data
show. In previous years, it let expire more than $235,000 in charter
school start-up funds. The state also is sitting
on $42 million 9 percent of the federal education dollars coming to
the state, a Bush administration report shows intended for elements
of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act,
widely criticized as being underfunded. But "We don't need
to spend all the money immediately . . . and we're going to use every
dime," state associate superintendent Ray Timothy said. "We
wouldn't be going after those dollars and receiving those dollars unless
we intended to use them. The only reason we would send it back is if
we have to." The reports add to controversy
over No Child Left Behind. NCLB requires all students
to read and do math on grade level by 2014. It also requires all schools
have what it calls highly qualified teachers, among other rules. But some members of
Congress, presidential candidates and teachers unions say the Bush administration
hasn't given states enough money to reach those standards. In Utah,
Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, is sponsoring a bill to eschew NCLB requirements
and the more than $100 million they bring, because of money budget
crunchers are tallying costs and local control issues. But the Bush administration
questions the outcry. It reports states are
sitting on $5.75 billion in federal education dollars, including those
for NCLB. States also failed to spend another $124 million before the
funds expired last year, The Associated Press reports. Republicans on the House
Committee on Education & the Workforce cited the reports last week
in announcing hikes in No Child Left Behind
Title I aid for high-poverty schools. "We are pumping
gas into a flooded engine," committee chairman John Boehner, R-Ohio,
said in a prepared statement. Federal funding isn't
like having money in the bank. Schools can't get it until after they've
spent it. Schools must spend federal
allotments, earmarked for disabled students, incarcerated youngsters
and others, within a certain time. For instance, districts
have 27 months to spend NCLB money, NCLB coordinator Laurie Lacy said.
They seek reimbursement once they pay for programs and activities. Some districts might
be planning summertime teacher training, for instance. So it's no surprise
$42 million in federal dollars has not yet been claimed, state officials
say. And they promise it will get used. But sometimes, it doesn't. State charter schools
planning coordinator Patricia Bradley said fewer people applied to set
up charter schools than the State Office of Education anticipated when
it requested the federal start-up money. In 2000, for instance, no new
charter schools opened. And just five three fewer
than anticipated opened last fall. So when charter schools
do start opening, the state education office tries to juggle federal
funds, awarding schools the oldest money first. Also, federal rules
say schools should use the money for things the state doesn't cover,
like building libraries or new computers, and not their greatest hardship:
buildings and rent. "I think it was
our best judgment in trying to award oldest money first in hopes . .
. that would allow us to expend it and not lose it," Bradley said.
"But that's always somewhat of a best-guess kind of scenario. We
have money coming in under that grant now, predicated on our estimates
of schools being approved, some of which just didn't happen in our first
years." The reports have met
with controversy from state education bosses nationwide. But Timothy
sees their silver lining. "The positive thing
is, because this has been brought to our attention, we need to be watching
that closely so we don't let any of that lapse,"
he said. "We intend to use every penny to help students." Education
experiment heads for Extinction AP, The change -- a pillar
of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's overhaul of the city's troubled public
school system -- mirrors a national trend away from elected school boards
in urban school districts. "What's happening
in New York is just continuing this momentum of Chicago, Cleveland,
Boston and Detroit, where we've seen the abolishment of an elected board
and giving the mayor more control over the district," said Todd
Ziebarth, policy analyst with the Denver-based
Education Commission of the States. The change from school
boards to parent councils in Under the old system,
elections were held every three years for 32 community school boards
in the five boroughs. The boards had the authority to hire and fire
principals and superintendents until 1996, when the state Legislature
stripped away much of their power. The switch away from
locally elected boards is among several sweeping changes Bloomberg has
championed since taking office two years ago. Bloomberg wrested control
of the schools from the now-defunct Board of Education and hired former
federal prosecutor Joel Klein as chancellor. The two have established
a uniform curriculum for all but the highest-performing schools, created
a Political sway Under the new system,
nine of the 11 members of each council will be chosen by the officers
of school parent associations or parent-teacher associations. The other
two will be chosen by the borough presidents; there will also be a non-voting
student member. As in other cities,
some New Yorkers welcome the change as an overdue reform of a patronage-plagued
system, while others decry the loss of voting rights and neighborhood
control. "It's a sad day
when you take away the ability of the public to vote," said Rodney
Saunders, a member of school board in the With 1.1 million pupils,
Race was a factor, too.
The school system had white leaders and a largely black and Hispanic
student body at the time; activists hoped the elected school boards
would reflect the ethnic makeup of their communities. Over the years, many
of the boards were accused of being little more than patronage mills,
appointing school officials based on political connections rather than
academic credentials. In the worst cases, board members were convicted
of plundering funds. "There was a feeling
that the school boards had become mostly political launching pads for
people who had agendas that were not necessarily the interests of public
education first," said state Assemblyman Steven Sanders. But supporters of the
community school boards -- which still exist in lame-duck form until
the new councils are selected in May -- say corruption has been the
exception, not the rule. "In every type
of government body you're going to have one or two people that may be
corrupt," said City Councilman Robert Jackson, who served on a
school board in In
Some Schools, It's One Teacher, One Student
By SAM DILLON, New York
Times, ROCK RIVER, Wyo. Tucked
high up in the snow-swept Laramie Mountains sits a public school with
just one young teacher, Rebecca Rodgers, and her lone student, Joe Kennedy,
a seventh grader. Cozy Hollow Elementary
is the best way "It was awkward
at the beginning," Mrs. Rodgers said, so much so that when classes
began last fall Joe was not sure whether to raise his hand to ask questions
or just speak up. Mrs. Rodgers urged the latter. "Now it feels pretty
good," Joe said. "There's nobody else to bug us." Cozy Hollow Elementary
is unusual but not unique, although nobody seems to track precisely
how many single-student schools there are across the nation. The challenges of educating
students in rural states from The tiny school at Cozy
Hollow, about 100 miles northwest of But for all the technological
advances, flesh-and-blood elementary teachers like Mrs. Rodgers, 23,
are still a critical link in the educational chain. Just out of teachers
college, she keeps the school day businesslike when it begins sharply
at Mrs. Rodgers lives with
her husband, a graduate student in astronomy, in a trailer attached
to a second trailer that serves as Joe's classroom, but this is not
home schooling. She is a certified public school teacher; her annual
salary is $25,720. Joe must pass the same standardized tests that bedevil
urban students. In the Albany County
No. 1 School District in southeastern Test scores show that
the individual instruction at tiny rural schools is extremely effective,
Mr. Cashman said, eyeing a herd of Black Angus as a golden eagle
soared overhead. "But you better
hope you get a match between the student, teacher and family, because
if you don't, it can be miserable," he said. At midjourney,
Mr. Cashman used a two-way radio to call ahead,
announcing his visit. "KT216 to the Kennedy ranch, Joyce or Gene,
can you hear me?" he asked. He could not establish
contact, and an hour later he pulled into the ranch and braked to a
stop in front of the school. Inside he found Mrs. Rodgers and her student
seated across from each other, engrossed in a math lesson. Joe correctly
calculated the height of a tree, based on the length of its shadow. "Good job, that's
awesome," Mrs. Rodgers said. "Now let's go for some geography." Ninth
Grade Key to Success, but Reasons Are Debated
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO,
New York Times, Increasingly, educators
say, students at risk of failing pivotal tests commonly given in the
10th and 11th grades are being held back, sometimes more than once.
Frequently, such students become so discouraged that they drop out. The impact of the trend
is evident in a significant nationwide bulge in students enrolled in
ninth grade and a tripling of the attrition between the 9th and 10th
grades over the last 30 years, according to a report by Walter Haney
of "The implications
are not only dire for these individual students, but dire for society
at large," Dr. Haney said in an interview. The report, "The
Education Pipeline in the United States, 1970-2000," compares school
enrollment data by grade from the Education Department's The slide occurred just
as President Bill Clinton and Congress ushered in the school accountability
measures strengthened in the No Child Left Behind
Act, and set a national goal of raising the four-year graduation rate
to 90 percent by 2000. Instead, the share of on-time graduations declined
by four percentage points, to 74.4 percent in 2000-01 from 78.4 percent
in 1991-92, according to Dr. Haney's study. The report calculates
that while 3.4 million students were enrolled in the eighth grade in
the 1996-97 school year, 871,000 of them failed
to graduate from high school in four years. If the graduation rate of
the early 1990's had remained unchanged, 135,000 more of those eighth
graders would have left high school with diplomas in hand. Dr. Haney contends that
the overall decline in graduation rates is a result of two trends: increasing
course requirements and growing demands that high school students pass
specific standardized tests, commonly called exit exams, to receive
a diploma. "The benign explanation
is that this whole standards and reform movement was implemented in
an ill-conceived manner," Dr. Haney said. John Robert Warren,
a professor of education at the "The two things
we really know contribute to dropouts are poverty and recent Hispanic
immigrants," he said. He said the declines also have to do with
a dwindling commitment among politicians and the public "to making
sure that every kid has access to a decent education." To Steven Orel,
director of the World of Opportunity Adult Education program here, the
competing explanations poverty, the pressure of standardized exams
and a readiness to write off the most difficult students are all true.
Three years ago, 16-year-olds
started showing up at his G.E.D. program, then run by the Birmingham
Public Schools. They were carrying documents saying they had just "withdrawn"
from Woodlawn, the local high school. The cause?
"Lack of interest," according to the forms
signed by Woodlawn officials. "Kids were coming
to us within a week or a month of leaving high school," Mr. Orel
said. "It defied logic to me: Why were these kids coming to me
if they lacked interest?" Mr. Orel
enlisted the support of Virginia Volker, a "A lot of our parents
are poor and overworked, and they didn't object," Ms. Volker said. A spokeswoman for the
Schools
or Pencils: A Fund Disconnect With daily classroom
needs often underfinanced, the separate budgeting for construction can
produce facilities that are lavish by comparison. By Kristina Sauerwein, For students at a few
new public schools in Freshly built campuses
boast multimillion-dollar amenities, such as college-style gymnasiums,
wireless computers, art galleries, and theaters with stadium seating,
high-tech special effects and indoor-outdoor stages. Even as administrators
scramble to find money for supplies, textbooks and other necessities,
they say these big-ticket perks confer community bragging rights, help
recruit and retain the best teachers and encourage students to excel
in academics, sports and social activities, giving them an edge in college
and scholarship applications. "We have the best
new stuff," said Lauren Fougere, 16,
a sophomore at The 1,800-student campus
takes pride in a state-of-the-art theater that would be envy of many
communities, as well as professional-level equipment for classes in
ceramics, culinary arts, computer sciences and multimedia. "We have plush
seats," Fougere said of some classrooms,
and students can watch demonstrations on a kitchen island resembling
those seen on TV cooking shows. "It doesn't seem
like there are budget problems here," Fougere
said as she and her friends ate onion-scented dishes of pasta carbonara
they had cooked in a classroom stocked with a convection oven, six stoves
and restaurant-quality grills. Fougere took another bite, then reconsidered. "I guess we do
feel the budget a little," she said. "We used to have more
cooking labs, but the budget is more restricted." Chino Hills Principal
James Moore said he has mixed feelings about these first-class amenities
because he has to scrounge for the money to buy the supplies needed
to keep them running, whether it's flour, ceramic
clay or theatrical props. The dichotomy exists
because schools such as Chino Hills get their money from two distinct
sources: one for books, pencils and other day-to-day expenses, which
is subject to the whims of the state economy and California Legislature;
and a second for school construction, which comes mostly from special
state and local bond measures approved by voters. The two pots of money
are not allowed to mix, so even if the construction of a new school
is completed under budget, the leftover money cannot be used to buy
textbooks or other daily necessities. Chino Hills High, which
opened in 2001, cost more than $71 million to build. The school was
frugal with the basics, But "With budgets so
tight, I do wonder about maintaining" and buying materials for
the theater and other perks, Many argue that school
districts statewide should have more flexibility in how they spend their
money. If needed, construction funds should be allowed to cover basics,
such as replacing antiquated books, said K. Lloyd Billingsley, an education
expert for the Pacific Research Institute, a public policy nonprofit
organization in "An extravagant
gymnasium is nice, but how many students are going to make a career
out of athletics?" he said. "It's not the building that teaches
kids." Billingsley noted the
example of the Belmont Learning Complex near downtown "Plans for the
school included all the bells and whistles," including 80,000 square
feet of retail space, Billingsley said of the unfinished $286-million
campus. "Not one child has been educated there." In May, the Los Angeles
Board of Education voted to complete the project, the most expensive
school construction project in state history. The decision was applauded
by many education experts and parents who say overcrowding and dilapidated
surroundings hurt academics. "We have students
who have to wake up at 5 a.m., stand in front of their neighborhood
school and wait for a bus that takes them away to another school,"
said Jim McConnell, chief facilities executive for the 740,000-student
Los Angeles Unified School District. "It's better for them to attend
their neighborhood schools." The district, the state's
largest, buses an estimated 16,000 students because there's no room
for them at campuses near their homes. Los Angeles Unified needs to
build 200 new schools to reduce crowding, McConnell said. On the March ballot,
the district will ask voters within Los Angeles Unified's
boundaries to help pay for new campuses with a $3.8-billion school construction
and repair bond. On the same ballot,
voters statewide will decide on a $12.3-billion state bond to build
or improve school and college campuses. That proposal is separate from
a $15-billion bond measure on the same ballot aimed at keeping the overall
state budget afloat. "You have to look
at a school as a long-lived asset, an investment in the future,"
said Ron Bennett, president of School Services of California, a consulting
firm that works with most of the state's more than 1,000 school districts.
"The facilities enhance the learning." At some new schools,
parents have complained because districts skipped the perks and provided
the absolute minimum. "They felt like
money was wasted," Bennett said. "They felt like what their
children got was inadequate." State-of-the-art school
facilities also help keep students competitive with those from other
states. "I don't think
At The Thunderdome
helped lure Jerry De Fabiis, a prized "It looks like
a big college gym," he said. "It's a great opportunity to
work here." The gym includes parquet
floors, an all-glass entryway, a trophy room, a mezzanine and two regulation
basketball courts. The campus also has a large, 13-foot-deep pool that
it shares with the community. Athletics and other
activities benefit students socially, personally and academically
especially students who must meet a certain grade point average to participate
and who don't want to lose those amenities, Brodie
said. "Students come
for the football and stay for the reading," Brodie
said. He paused. "It
would be nice if it weren't a challenge to buy supplies." In
Fighting Stereotypes, Students Lift Test Scores
By MELISSA P. Girls and low-income
minority students are more likely to improve their scores on standardized
tests when they are taught ways to overcome the pressures associated
with negative stereotypes, according to a new study of seventh graders. Despite decades of national
attention, standardized test results continue to show gender and race
gaps in achievement. Some educators say these disparities, including
girls' lower math scores and the lower reading scores of minority and
low-income students, are a result of anxiety-inducing stereotypes. A new study suggests
that arming students with the means to overcome that anxiety may reduce
those disparities. The study, which was
published in The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology in December,
was conducted by Dr. Catherine Good, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology
at "One of the biggest
pictures our research tells is that performance is so much more psychological
than anything else," Dr. Aronson said. In the study, college
students acted as mentors for 138 seventh graders from Del Valle Independent
School District near To test which method
worked best, the researchers randomly assigned the seventh graders to
one of four groups. The mentors taught one group of students about how
the brain processes information. Another group was taught that all students
faced academic difficulty in the transition to junior high school but
that most overcame these challenges. The mentors gave both
messages to students in the third group. Then, the standardized test
performance of these three groups was compared with the performance
of a fourth group of students, who received information only about the
dangers of drug use. The girls who were taught
that intelligence developed over time scored significantly higher on
the standardized math test than girls in the fourth group. Similarly,
the minority and low-income students who were told that they could overcome
challenges and achieve academic success scored significantly higher
on the standardized reading test than students in the fourth group,
the researchers found. The students who received
both messages registered comparable gains. Students who were told about
drug use experienced no gains. The findings suggest
that if minority and low-income students receive positive messages about
their ability to learn and succeed academically, they are less likely
to conform to stereotypes they believe others have of them poor reading
ability in the case of minority students and inferior math skills in
the case of girls when taking standardized tests. The researchers note
that standardized test scores may be poor predictors of future academic
success. But they say that encouraging adolescents to attribute academic
troubles to their situation rather than to their shortcomings can meaningfully
increase student achievement. This is encouraging,
the researchers say, because it demonstrates a successful way to stem
the spiral of self-blame, anxiety and underperformance that many adolescents
experience. Researchers say their
findings could lead schools to adopt programs to remedy stereotype-based
underperformance as students move into junior high school. "The key is for
students to think that change is possible," Dr. Aronson said. "Kids
who believe intelligence is malleable are not demoralized and succeed." Filling
superintendent jobs gets tougher Anne Ryman, The Resignations or retirements
in recent months have led many school districts to launch searches to
fill their top slot. Districts looking for
new leaders include Dysart Unified, Madison Elementary and Cartwright
Elementary, among others. Scottsdale Superintendent
Barbara Erwin announced last week that she is leaving June 30 to take
a job as superintendent of a school district in Panfilo Contreras, executive director of the Arizona School
Boards Association, said the number of superintendent searches taking
place is about average for the state. Not as many people are
interested in the job as five or 10 years ago, said Roger Short, who
conducts superintendent searches for the Arizona School Boards Association.
More administrators are satisfied to stay assistant superintendents
or principals because of the increasing pressures of tight budgets and
accountability. "It takes a very
special person to be superintendent in this day and age," said
Short, who is a former superintendent. That said, the "The waters are
somewhat calm there," Short said, "and
it makes it easier for someone to come in." Scottsdale School Board
President Sandra Zapien-Ferrero said she expects
the board will get more applicants than when it conducted its last superintendent
search in 1999 and early 2000. "Dr. Erwin came
in at a very difficult time," she said. SD2
board kills spring break for 05, 06, 07 By JOHN FITZGERALD Of The With their hands tied
by state and national testing requirements, Trustee Katharin
Kelker was hopeful, however, that the state
Board of Public Education will do away with the required Iowa Test of
Basic Skills and the Iowa Test of Educational Development. If this happens,
the rigorous testing schedule students face
in March and April may ease up enough to allow a spring break. The vote to approve
the schedule was 8-0, with trustee Judith Herzog absent. The calendar for this
year remains unchanged. The calendar for next year substitutes a spring
break with several three-day weekends sprinkled throughout the winter
and spring. The 2005-'06 and 2006-'07 calendars do the same. The ITBS/ITED tests
are required by the state. They must be taken within a three-week window
in March. Then comes the Montana Comprehensive
Test Assessment, required by the federal government as part of its No
Child Left Behind initiative. This also has a three-week window. The three-week windows
are necessary because both of these tests cover six subjects. Both require
schools to offer re-tests for students who miss any of the original
six tests. Then re-tests have to be offered for those who missed the
first re-tests. Lorrie Wolverton,
a sixth-grade teacher at Eagle Cliffs Elementary, is a member of the
district's Calendar Committee. She said the committee considered moving
spring break to February, but decided that was too close to winter break.
Committee members also considered a break late in April, but decided
it wouldn't make sense for students to take a break, then
come back for one month before school ends. Kelker said that bound by strict state and federal test requirements,
the Calendar Committee found the best solution it could. She said the
high schools have to begin planning now to schedule the next school
year, so the board had to act. However, she said the
Board of Public Education might consider shifting its test requirements
to meet the federal test requirement, which would eliminate the need
for the ITBS/ITED. If that happens, the board could ask the Calendar
Committee to reconvene and redraw the schedule, she said. Trustee Gene Jarussi asked Superintendent Rod Svee
if the Board of Public Education could act quick enough to affect next
year's schedule. Svee said he didn't know.
Trustee Conrad Stroebe asked what the penalties would be if the district
ignored the tests. Svee said depending on
which test was ignored, the district would lose federal or state money,
which makes up the bulk of the district's income. Stroebe asked if teachers felt there is too much testing. Svee said teachers have told him there is. It reminds me of a
talk I had with a rancher at a meeting recently, Svee
said. He said that if all he did was weigh
his cows all the time, they'd never get fat. Parent Jane McCracken
addressed the board, saying the lack of a spring break was onerous for
teachers and students. She said the district may have to review its
10-day absence policy for high school students because parents will
take students out of school for their own break. She also asked the board
to look into the policy of two sets of early out days - one for elementary
students and one for middle and high school students. You'll have many kids
going to an empty home, she said. The facilities for occasional day
care in District Operations
Officer Dan Martin said one of the reasons the days were split is because
buses can't transport all the students at the same time. Illinois State Board of Education |
