The teacher’s union and Gov. J.B. Pritzker kills scholarships for 9,600 poor children.
The Last Stand for School Choice in Illinois
On November 1, the Illinois Policy Institute discussed the Last Stand for School Choice in Illinois
Illinois schoolchildren did a little better this past school year, but they are still behind where they were before the pandemic hit and put them out of their classrooms for large blocks of time.
Scores for public schools were just released and showed only 35% of students in grades 3 through 8 could read at grade level in 2023, according to the Illinois Report Card. Only 27% met proficiency in math.
That is 3 percentage points lower in reading and 5 points lower in math than before the pandemic.
High school juniors taking the SAT posted similar proficiency: 32% could read and 27% do math at grade level.
Private schools advanced as public schools struggled, with Chicago still seeing a stark difference between public and private school achievement. In Chicago Public Schools, only 20% of elementary students scored proficient in reading compared to 72% in the Archdiocese of Chicago schools on their readiness assessment.
CTU President Stacy Davis Gates picked a parochial high school for her own son so he could pursue athletics and academics unavailable at his public school. Illinois Education Association chief lobbyist Sean Denney failed to shackle private schools with the same statewide pandemic mandates public schools followed, yet sends his children to a parochial school in Springfield.
Both union leaders are working to kill the private school option for over 9,600 low-income and mostly minority families. So far, they are winning.
The Last Stand Dies
As expected, here is today’s announcement: School Choice Dies in Illinois
The state and national teachers union made a priority of blocking an extension of the Invest in Kids program that provided a 75% state tax credit for donations to help families afford private schools. The unions claim the credit drained money from public schools, but public funding has increased nearly $2 billion since Invest in Kids began under former Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Current Gov. J.B. Pritzker refused to help save the program, even for children currently benefiting from it.
Illinois is now the first state to kill a major school-choice program. The scandal reflects the bloody-mindedness of the unions that want to snuff out even minor competition to retain their monopoly. And it reveals how little most Democrats care about the children they imprison in these failure factories.
I Despise the Teachers’ Unions
I absolutely despise the Teachers’ Unions, especially Illinois. They hold kids hostage for unjustified wages and benefits and the union protects incompetent teachers, even child molesters.
Chicago Teachers’ Union President Stacy Davis Gates will not send her own kid to public schools. Nor will Illinois Education Association chief lobbyist Sean Denney.
Bankruptcy is the only solution for cities in Illinois to escape state mandated benefit madness. Unfortunately, the state blocks municipal bankruptcy, so there is no solution for cities like Rockford, Danville, and too many others to count. They suffer in the form of slow decay with no hope of escape.
Public Unions Have No Business Existing: Even FDR Admitted That
Letter by Franklin D. Roosevelt on Public Unions
Please consider a few key snips from FDR’s Letter on the Resolution of Federation of Federal Employees Against Strikes in Federal Service, August 16, 1937, emphasis mine.
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that “under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.”
Recommended Steps
- National right-to-work laws
- Abolishment of all prevailing wage laws
- Ending public unions ability to strike
- Ending collective bargaining by public unions
On June 30, 2008, I commented Public Unions Have No Business Existing: Even FDR Admitted That
Collective bargaining cannot possibly exist in such circumstances. Unions can and have shut down schools. The unions do not give a damn about the kids.
Notice I said “unions” do not give a damn. Many, if not most, teachers do care for the kids, but the union does not. The unions can, and do, protect teachers guilty of abusing kids. It is nearly impossible to get rid of a bad tenured teacher or a bad cop.
Teachers’ unions are the worst, but it is also impossible to get rid of a bad union police officer or prison guard for the same reasons.
Mish, if you hate unions so much, why did you help elect the union’s favorite president – Biden?
Only TDS fools thinks I backed Biden
The fact of the matter is, for good reason, I do not like either of them
You trashed Trump for a year and never mentioned Biden.
BTW TDS is an affliction of people who hate Trump.
Not a fan of teacher unions and a big fan of school choice. People forget one more benefit of school choice … pesky non-progressives get out of the way and out of school board meetings. Public schools can fully embrace “gender affirming care” … drag queen shows, gay porn, the whole thing. Those pesky un-enlightened people can focus on STEM, Civics and English for their deplorable kids. Everybody wins.
Teachers Unions are a big problem, but they are highly intertwined with the “Ruling Class” and very well paid for it too! They don’t want to give up the massive salaries, massive healthcare, massive perks etc. for the kids. Teachers Unions hate kids, but they are a necessary evil to pull off the scam!!
Everyone in America should be overwhelmingly for “School Choice” for so many reasons. The biggest reason, is because competition leads to a higher standard for everybody. If schools choice was Mandatory & National, we would see grades in Public Schools climb like crazy. As they start closing some, due to incompetence, you will see the bar go even higher for learning.
Disband the Teachers Unions as a Public entity, and sever all ties immediately. Turn pensions into 401k plans and give them to the Teachers personally to handle moving forward. Allow them all to apply for the Teaching Jobs needed moving forward, on their own merit however. No tenure, no cutting, no special passes, but all equal. They will then be tossed into the pool of other teachers that just have teaching jobs, and based on performance (grades, completion etc.) they will sink or swim, but your children will be better educated by a long shot!!!
With the way AI & robotics are getting better, we’re at the doorstep of education starting to lose its value. I’d say that within 10 years, we’ll see all sorts of signs within the economy & choices students make, especially about not going to college. The payback just won’t be there for more and more students. In 20 years, education will have started to undergo profound changes, again, in terms of its diminishing returns.
Tom, do not discount the social skills, and skill sets they utilize way more outside the educational arena, but they’re as well in certain settings.
These skills are invaluable, as they provide the tools to utilize what it is you are learning, and do learn, by the time you graduate. Without them, your education will be diminished, and your skill sets not worked out yet.
I do agree with the educational part of it, and with AI especially, but that means the overall cost of education will need to plummet to make it worth it still, but it can be done to remain learning both parts of the formula for success from your educational experience IMO.
“35% Read at Grade Level”
The closer to zero, the closer to equity. Everyone will have the same inability to read. Or do math. Or whatever. Equity,
This makes my blood boil. We homeschooled our daughter since our school district here in the LA area was so bad it was in state receivership and she is now a Federal lawyer. We desperately need school choice. I have family in Idaho and every time I fly there I have young families sitting all around me that are moving there for both cheaper housing and better schools. Most were from east LA. I expect the same stupidity from California in time.
Educational outcomes are terrible because the US is now full of low quality people, both homegrown and imported over the past several decades. They will not meaningfully improve because the human capital is largely poor.
Agreed.
60 Minutes did a story a long time ago, about man who started an educational academy in Harlem and got those children into college. Jaime Escalante took low income children in East Los Angeles and made Calculus experts out of them, who aced the state test.
Here in California, the state is finalizing the introduction of social justice, into the math curriculum. Under Marxism, math is a system of oppression.
“They will not meaningfully improve because the human capital is largely poor.”
Add to that, a Fed and Government which has by now largely succeeded in ensuring all wealth and power gets transferred to those with the poorest of that poor human capital, and you have the current US: Ran by idiots, owned by idiots, for the benefit of idiots. And idiots only.
Anyone not an idiot, has long since had the vast majority of his purchasing power, and hence influence, transferred to yahoos with vastly less “human capital” than him.
What was once supposed to be some sort of “meritocracy”, is now a pure idiotocracy: If you own or run anything, you are, in practice near as per definition, an idiot. Trump and Biden being the sole contenders for the top job of them all, is not in any way coincidental. They simply outsmarted the rest of those now comprising “the elite.” By such comparative feats of intellectual achievement as falling down stairs and the like.
A dirty little secret here in Florida: it isn’t the public school teachers opposing government funding of private schools, it’s upper crust parents whose kids are in private schools, and don’t want to see the “wrong element” in their children’s classrooms. My neighbor is a teacher at a prominent Baptist elementary school in town, and she is quitting because the kids the state is funding are coming in and disrupting everyone’s education at the school. She was flabbergasted when she told a 2nd grader to quiet down and he responded with “suck my ____, b____!” Maybe paying public school teachers a little more to take that beating is useful for the rest of us.
There’s an easy solution for private schools to deal with this:
Expel the student that violates the code of the school. The private Christian school I went to would have given a detention to that student for saying it 1x and then expelled for a 2nd offense.
The school that puts up with behavior like this is also the problem.
What do parents do with their kid when they get expelled? Dunno, but that’s the parents problem for creating a kid with no moral code. They should be forced to deal with it, not a school classroom.
It’s what will the kids do, with parents that don’t control them.
They will be out on the streets at an early age.
Perhaps with a first job as a juvenile drug deliver boy.
In Singapore:
link to todayonline.com
“What the rules say
The answer can be found in Article 88 of the Education (Schools) Regulations of the Education Act. It states that no corporal punishment shall be administered on female pupils.
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As for male students, corporal punishment “shall be administered with a light cane on the palms of the hands or on the buttocks over the clothing”.
Article 88 also says: “No other form of corporal punishment shall be administered to boy pupils.”
“Where there is more than one teacher in a school, corporal punishment shall be inflicted by the principal only or under his express authority,” it states.
Principals as well as teachers, some of whom are in charge of discipline, told TODAY that a school’s disciplinary measures are clearly stated in a handbook for students, which are then shared with parents.
Caning is one of the disciplinary measures considered for “very serious offences”, they said. Others include detention, suspension and even expulsion.”
And their students are exemplary.
I wonder why.
When I went to school in the 70s it was still permissible to give kids the strap. I know lots of kids who got it regularly. Some time in the early 80’s it went away as corporal punishment was no longer allowed even if parents gave permission for it. A shame really.
Ironically, Singapore is probably one of the places least in need of corporal punishment. It’s 75% Chinese who put high value on education.
Its not just the teachers fault. Parents have to read to their children. Stress eduction and teach soft skills. But if the parents do not have the skill set. Its an up hill battle.
Stupid and irrelevant subjects like reading, writing, math and science are being replaced with more important subjects like gender studies, global warming awareness and diversity, equity and inclusion. How can America ever be made equal if there are smart people who think they are better than the dummies? Get with the program. Let’s not veer from the course, Utopia is almost here!
Don’t forget the teachings of activism. Gotta get these illiterate bodies into the streets for the latest “cause.”
Try looking up the literacy rate for the U.S. I did and I can’t find it. Are we to assume it’s 99%? You can find the rate for every other country. I’d guess the U.S. is below 90% and falling, hence the lack of reporting.
Found it on the first link of bing search. link to worldatlas.com
86%.
That sounded a little off to me, it’s actually 99%.
I think it may be complicated. I get the sense that in most countries, if you can sound out letters you are considered literate. While in the US, more skills are required.
I’ve never met a single illiterate person as defined by cant sound out letters.
The US is there with 86% literacy between Oman and Syria. However, what it lacks in literacy, it makes up in diversity.
The same trend is apparent in many formerly homogeneous European countries.
Typical for Illinois. Everything in the state is dying, including population growth.
The USA is the only major industrialized country without school choice.
Those opposed to school choice argue that it doesn’t work. Hmmmm, how does it work everywhere else then?
What other countries have learned is that kids learn best when the following are true:
Those I have encountered who argue against school choice argue that it reduces diversity. This is true. I’m glad it does because when diversity is reduced educational attainments improve. Bullying is very high in culturally diverse schools. It’s almost non-existent in culturally uniform schools. Kids learn better.
You can have diversity or you can have high educational attainments. You cannot have both.
Public schools that do well are precisely those that happen to have less diversity because the city that they are in are more culturally uniform. Even low income, black schools do better when diversity is lower.
This sounds horrible, but it’s true. Forced segregation is wrong. WHen school choice becomes a thing people demonstrate that they choose, on their own free will, to put their kids in envirnments that are less diverse and more like what they prefer. THe result in every country this has occurred has been a miraculous turnaround in education. This is only possible where UNIVERSAL school choice is a thing.
Only the USA doesn’t have this. We also have poor educational attainments.
I homeschool my three kids. One tests at teh 99% level, another the 92, and my 8 year old at the 97%. I’d like to credit genetics, but it’s actually the environment they are in. We need MORE of this, not less.
I’m past kids. Buy it seems easy if parents wanted out of public schools. They could set up their own small school systems with a small number of kids out of different homes where parents take turns as teachers. This way, the parent can also have a working life.
I think parents are lazy, and the system has total control over how they believe. They are stuck in the box.
What you propose would work. Unfortunately it’s illegal in all 50 states.
I live in NC and you can homeschool your kids, but only your kids. You are not allowed to co-teach another person’s kids.
So, there’s a legal barrier to what you propose, likely to protect public school union worker jobs.
I grew up in the 70’s in small town Canada. I didn’t go to school with anyone who wasn’t White until I entered high school (even then, my high school was 99% White).
I can assure you that Bullying was alive and well in the 70’s. It may not have been race based, but there was plenty of religious based (Protestant vs Catholic vs Jew vs Jehovah Witness etc) and even country of ancestor based (English vs Irish vs Italian etc). In other words, you don’t reduce bullying by reducing diversity because people can always find something else to bully someone about.
What ruined schools was the ‘no child left behind’ policies. Before that, kids with disabilities or behavioral problems were sent to special schools for slow learners and another for problem kids. So the kids in main stream schools were all learning at the same level and the class wasn’t held back because 1 kid couldn’t grasp a concept or was interrupting the class. That’s what private schools get right. They put kids of the same ability together so super smart go with super smart and average with average and slow with slow. We need to go back to that.
What you describe is a lot of diversity.
There are lots of forms, all of it bad in education. Racial, religious, cultural, etc, all contribute to bullying. I went to a mostly white Protestant school and still experienced it.
The bullying that occurs today though, is very very bad in public schools in forced desegregized schools because you have different cultures, religions, race, country of origin, disabilities, etc all tossed together in a grand social experiment. This is a social construct that isn’t best for education.
I’ll say it again, you can care about educational attainment or you can care about diversity but you cannot have both at the same time.
You did not go to a school that was uniform in culture. You attended a very diverse school and therefore a lot more bullying, which greatly hurts educational attainment.
Monoculture is much preferred for educational attainment, public opinion notwithstanding.
In Denmark, for instance, they have a 100 school voucher system and everyone can pick their own school. There are many many for profit schools there. If you want your kid to attend a Muslim school, you can, and the state pays for it. If you want your kid to attend a school that focuses heavily on the arts or music or drama or whatever, you can.
The results? Denmark leads the USA in every metric, and most other countries too, even when their non-white students are counted.
THe USA is more racially diverse than most nations, and so, has a special problem that is made much worse by forced desegregation.
I hate to disagree with you, but the schools I attended were not diverse in any way. Just because there were 3 or 4 students in a class of 25 who were different doesn’t make it diverse.
Based on your definition of diversity (race, religion, country of ancestry, wealth etc), it would be 100% impossible to obtain a mono culture school unless you were homeschooling your own kids.
the biggest detriment to learning is having kids of unequal mental and behavioral skills grouped together. Schools in Canada have also gone downhill but it’s not because of diversity because you can still go to small towns in rural areas and have schools that are 100% white with essentially the same religion etc and not have good students. That’s because Canada also did their own version of no child left behind and once that came into play, education went down hill.
I will definitely agree that the No Child Left Behind Act worsened the diversity problem.
Though well intentioned, it’s a huge headwind for any smart student who wants to do better.
A nation of kids that are all the same, receive all the same treatment and attain the same level of prosperity isn’t good for anyone.
Not just smart kids, even average kids are dragged down if you have 1-2 slow learners who are forcing the rest of the class to learn at their pace. Even average kids get bored quickly and no one learns what they are supposed to learn at that grade level.
The sister of a friend has taught in Oregon schools for 20+ years. She says that there are now so many kids with learning disabilities (e.g. autistic to various degrees) that it is impossible to provide a proper education; there are just too many distractions and time spent with the special needs kids. Either for cost or policy reasons the latter are not in special classes any more.
Of course in other classrooms due to bad (if not downright dangerous) behaviour the teachers are a mix of babysitters and prison guards.
No wonder homeschooling is on the rise!