Education

Fixing Education in Illinois

1. Dramatic improvement in Illinois education system’s financial transparency.

The last few years have seen some positive steps in the direction of improved financial reporting. As Governor, Adam will build on that progress by integrating and consolidating financial information that is now available, but difficult to find.

2. Aggressive expansion of Charter schools across Illinois

Charter schools are a proven-effective education delivery system. As Governor, Adam will work to dramatically expand the number of charter schools in Illinois. Additionally, he will provide more information and improve the processes for Illinois citizens interested in the formation of more charter schools.

3. Divert State Funds from CPS Bureaucracy directly to Individual Chicago Schools

As Governor, Adam will work to improve the quality of education in Illinois overall by improving the quality of education in Chicago schools. This will be accomplished by bypassing the CPS bureaucracy and sending state money directly to individual Chicago schools on a per student basis. This will re-empower school principal, local school councils, thereby empowering local citizens to have a greater say in solving their local education problems.

4. Triple the Private School Tax Credit

As Governor, Adam will encourage private schools by tripling the private school tax credit from $500 to $1500. The private education of children is a great benefit to the Illinois school system. The parents of private schools children contribute the same amount of tax funds to the government, yet do not collect on the benefits.

Fixing Education in Illinois

Education in Illinois is very expensive, and in many cases, ineffective. Where our children are getting a good education, it is expensive, and where our children are not getting a good education, we suffer a double loss. The cost of their schooling is too expensive, and the cost, in terms of human potential is even greater.

With that in mind, we have to apply the same "good government" principles to education policy so that more citizens can become involved in one of the most important aspects of our society. In the short term, we are going to focus on three areas to improve outcomes for Illinois children.

1. Dramatic improvement in Illinois education system’s financial transparency.

While working with two different transparency sites, we found that while one site was reporting that spending on "Administration" was only 2.7% of the district budget, another site showed (by adding up all Administrative compensation) that it was actually 8.7%. The State Board of Education's site has that figure at .007%. This gives us 3 different numbers for "Administration" for one school district. This level of confusion is the very definition of "bad government."

The last few years have seen some positive steps in the direction of improved school district financial reporting, but the example above illustrates the problem. The Andrzejewski Administration will build on that progress by integrating and consolidating financial information that is now found in different locations. He will also make the data uniform, so that different sources do not report different data. All the transparency in the world won’t be helpful if a citizen cannot understand what the data means or if the data is wrong. Adam will take the following steps to create greater transparency:

• Simplify the school district budget (AFR).  If you want to see just how difficult it is to understand school district finance, simply read this document at the Illinois State Board of Education website. No taxpayer should have to work this hard to determine how their tax dollars are being spent or suffer being told that important accounting issues should be “left to the experts.” School district accounting must be clarified to the extent that every high school graduate can understand not only what checks have been written, but also the existence of each public account, and the balance in those accounts. The mandatory budget posting, while helpful to experts, does not begin to inform the citizens of the budget intricacies. Adam invites every citizen to download the Excel spreadsheet for an entire school district budget. As you click from sheet to sheet, you will begin to get the sense of just how overly (and unnecessarily) complex the education of our children has become. Adam will propose legislation that reduces the number of funds necessary for a school district, as well as proposals to dramatically simplify school district finance.

• Make the School District Budget “dynamic.” Along with the simplification mentioned directly above, Adam will propose legislation that makes on-line budget transparency dynamic (in real-time). No citizen should have to file a “Free of Information Act request” to see the balance, inter-fund transactions, or the check register for every fund of a school district. These items need to show “every dime, on-line, in real time.”

• Link every school district’s budget to ISBE site. The Illinois State Board of Education website currently has reports on the financial condition of each school district. These reports show a series of criteria as to the district’s financial condition, including graphs of the condition of the information over time. While somewhat useful, these reports yield very little in the way of useful information for the average taxpayer.

Adam will supplement the existing reports with links back to each district’s newly “dynamic” AFR (see above).

• Aggregate data from all School Districts

The current reporting system provides the appearance of "transparency" in the form of a requirement that each school district produce a detailed budget. This budget report provides details in a manner that make it difficult for the average person to navigate. (example of a single district here) If the citizenry can’t understand, they will not be able to make informed decisions on their school district’s financial condition.

Our goal in reforming the budget reporting for education is twofold.  As Governor, Adam would simultaneously simplify school district budgeting while dramatically improving the ability of average taxpayer to seek out and find the newly simplified information.

• Citizens need to be able to find every dollar of district money with ease.

While certain strides have been made in getting more transparency, government must go farther, and to do it quickly. Adam will take the existing infrastructure of school district transparency, which has some positive elements to build off of, and create a seamless thread of information that any citizen can follow. As Governor, Adam Andrzejewski will develop a simplified budget that reduces the number of separate funds so that taxpayers can see the information faster. Adam will also expand the level of detail shown in the budget so that a taxpayer can click on any account and immediately see every detail, including the check register, and salaries of each position.

Adam will also mandate that each district produce data on the bidding process for every contract equal to or over $5000. This will include the text of the contract itself. Every district will have to produce this data in a clear, concise, searchable, and uniform fashion.

Adam envisions a day when any taxpayer can go to both the State Board of Education website or the site of any school district and drill down to the spending of every penny, the “real time” balance in every account, and background on every contract. All of that transparency should occur without the totally unnecessary step of having to request information that is already rightfully theirs. It is time for Illinois citizens to experience the power of transparency.

2. Aggressive expansion of Charter schools across Illinois

Education is a ‘hot button’ issue that triggers heated arguments. Adam believes that these arguments (which often focus on dollars spent instead the quality of education) distract from the real issue at hand, which is providing the best education for our children.

Charter schools are a proven-effective public school system that functions under less bureaucracy. The nonprofit boards that operate a school, sign five-year agreements, “charters,” that spell out precise goals for test scores, attendance rates and safety. If a school meets its targets, it typically gets another five-year pact. If it doesn't, the school’s charter is revoked.

Take a look at the stunning test results of charter schools in New York and you'll see a small miracle in the making. The fourth-graders reading at or above the state standard jumped 9.9 percentage points, but charters did a third better, with their pass rate soaring 13.2 points. Those numbers make a hugely compelling case for more charters. However, New York allows only 100 charters for the entire state. By fall, New York City will just about max out with 47 of those charters, representing a puny 3% of all city schools. That's not nearly enough for Chancellor Joel Klein, who later went to the state capitol demanding that legislators obliterate the 100-school state cap.

Here in Illinois, we suffer from a similar situation where the creation of charters has become a political decision placed in that hands of powerful interest groups that have a clear conflict of interest in making that decision.

Adam Andrzejewski will not just raise, but remove the current cap, on charter schools in Illinois. Additionally, he will provide more information and improved processes for Illinois citizens interested in the formation of more charter schools.

3. Divert State to CPS funds directly to Chicago Schools

Chicago Public Schools is the largest “school district” in the state. However, parents of children attending a CPS school do not get the same level of participation as they would in a normal school district. For instance a parent at a CPS school cannot go to the weekly board meeting in the evening to make public comment. Instead it takes an entire day. The individual must sign in prior to 9:30 and public comment does not begin until 11 am.

The CPS education bureaucracy that bars parents from participating has a laundry list of problems ranging from low test scores to high dropout rates. The bureaucracy has countless instances of mismanagement of funds. (Click here to read the CPS Auditor Report.) Our goal is to make one minor change that will have an exponentially positive impact on the education of the children.

Adam will send all state funds directly to CPS school principals on a per student basis to cut out the bureaucratic middle man. This will empower the people closest to the problems to have the funds necessary to do something about it. These funds will not be without oversight.

Rather than create a new state level bureaucracy to oversee the use of these funds, Adam will use existing bodies to supervise the expense of these Funds. Within CPS, Local School Councils already exist. These will function like a regular school board in relations to the spending of state finds. Money follows the school.

4. Triple the Private School Tax Credit

Private schools are the unknown factor in the Illinois education system. What we do know is that on average a private schools charge roughly $6,000 per student.  Public education in Illinois spends over 11,000 per student to educate. Parents who send their children to private school actually save taxpayers 11,000 per year. However, those same individuals still pay all property taxes and receive a minimal (25%) refund for costs associated with privately educating their children.

Adam will create incentives for more parents to use private schools and ease the tax burden for those who already do by tripling the private school tax credit from $500 to $1500.