Governor Rauner in Paxton, Illinois earlier this year
CHICAGO – Governor Bruce Rauner wrote an op-ed about the urgent need for an education funding bill that appeared in the Daily Herald Wednesday. An excerpt:
Since taking office, I've made educating all children in Illinois my top priority. Since February, I've called on the General Assembly to pass a clean education funding bill to ensure our schools open on time this fall with full funding for the first time in seven years.
Unfortunately, Democratic leaders adjourned on May 31st without enacting a balanced budget, leaving children, parents and teachers across the state wondering if schools will open on time.
The good news is that reasonable, fair solutions are being offered. GOP Leaders introduced a clean, stand-alone education bill that puts our children first by increasing school funding by $240 million. […] It ensures the vast majority of schools in Illinois get more money this year than they did last year while no school district receives less.
So why would anyone delay passing such a reasonable bill into law? As the Senate president told us months ago, Democrats want to hold up funding for schools to change the school funding formula they created.
Democrats want to force suburban and downstate taxpayers to bailout CPS from years of financial mismanagement and declining student enrollment — to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. […]
The school funding formula needs reform, but there is a lack of consensus within the General Assembly and across school districts on how to do this. This also comes after the Democrats reduced overall state support for schools four times in the last 10 years.
To hold districts hostage in an attempt to sneak in a new school funding formula that will disproportionately send more money to CPS will not solve our inequitable funding formula for the long term.
The rest is HERE.
