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Education Desk
The Education Desk is our education blog focusing on key areas of news coverage important to the state and its improvement. Evidence of public policy performance and impact will be reported and analyzed. We encourage you to engage in commenting and discussing the coverage of education from pre-natal to Higher Ed.Dusty Rhodes curates this blog that will provide follow-up to full-length stories, links to other reports of interest, statistics, and conversations with you about the issues and stories.About - Additional Education Coverage00000179-2419-d250-a579-e41d385d0000

Education Desk: Cullerton Proposes A School Funding Plan

John Cullerton
Brian Mackey
/
NPR Illinois | 91.9 UIS

As the clock ticks down on the General Assembly, lawmakers are struggling to avoid the debacle of public schools not opening in the fall. But they’re having a tough time coming up with a school funding formula that pleases both parties.

The number of different school funding plans can be counted on one hand -- just barely. Friday afternoon, the senate approved a measure pushed by Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, that would freeze the current funding formula and allow the City of Chicago to raise property taxes -- measures meant to appease Republicans. Any new monies would be distributed through a formula Cullerton says decreases Chicago Public School’s share of state dollars.

 

“But I’m still willing to put it in here, with the increase in our own property taxes -- not yours, ours -- so that we don’t have a strike, we don’t have layoffs," Cullerton said. "We want to keep the schools open in Chicago.”

But Cullerton’s bill would also put the state on the hook for Chicago Public Schools' teacher pensions -- and Republicans consider that a poison pill. The state already carries the pension costs for all other school districts.

After a long career in newspapers (Dallas Observer, The Dallas Morning News, Anchorage Daily News, Illinois Times), Dusty returned to school to get a master's degree in multimedia journalism. She began work as Education Desk reporter at NPR Illinois in September 2014.
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