Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed an education funding bill because there was too much money for Chicago.
Rauner vetoes education funding plan, rewriting Democrats’ proposal
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-bruce-rauner-education-met-0802-20170801-story.html
Rauner, a billionaire hedge fund manager, loves charter schools, hates public schools. He especially hates Chicago public schools because the union fought him and continues to fight him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is the Trump’s model of policy formation. Budget cut as a payback for criticism, not bowing and scraping
LikeLike
Chicago is falling down a vortex and children are caught in the middle. But Mayor Emanuel was sent to fix it. What happened? Gee, was he pretending to care?
LikeLike
Oh he was sent to fix it all right. As in, the fix is in.
LikeLike
I call Rahm “Reprehensible Rahm-BOO! He’s bad news.
LikeLike
I am not sorry for my first thought after reading this.
That thought was, “Beat Bruce the Billionaire.”
LikeLike
There is speculation that Rauner & Emanuel are having a battle and they are using the children as game pieces. Is the battle for show, or is this for real is anyone’s guess.
Forcing school districts to go bankrupt – which not only includes K – 12, but secondary as well is the game they hope to win at.
LikeLike
Ugh, Ed reform has been such a disaster for Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. Indiana too. And Pennsylvania.
I think that’s why they always point to DC, NYC and Boston. That vast swathe in the upper middle of the country has really been hammered.
LikeLike
90% of a mayor’s job is getting a fair share of funding from the state.
They need a new mayor.
LikeLike
Did anyone doubt that Raundog wouldn’t veto the bill?
If so, I’ve got some great white sand ocean front property over at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri for sale. Operators standing by!
LikeLike
Isn’t this mostly about funding Chicago’s teachers pension fund and not about general operations?
LikeLike
Yes, that’s exactly what people outside of IL don’t understand. Why should the rest of the state fund Chicago’s underfunded teacher pension mess? They opted to be a separate pension group, a long time ago. They have a better pension deal than every other teacher in the state, and now that it’s messed it up, they want the rest of the state to bail them out. My own Illinois teacher’s pension (TRS) is a mess as it is. I don’t know if I’ll have access to money when I retire but I sure don’t want to bail out Chicago, now. They opted to go it alone, I say figure it out yourself. Madigan does not control the whole state…it has nothing to do with charter schools and every thing to do with our bully city, Chicago.
LikeLike
Well, you can look at it that way if you want, but the fact remains that the majority of Illinois’ tax revenue comes from the Chicago metro area. https://rebootillinois.com/2014/05/11/illinois-tax-money-comes/ We pay in more than we get back from Springfield.
LikeLike
Another viewpoint worth reading: http://www.ctbaonline.org/press-room/downstate-vs-chicago-false-dichotomy
LikeLike
As a number of us (our # includes mostly Bernie Progressive Dems) have been saying: this bill has been a mess. It was pushed by Advance IL (blatantly, & a pro-charter org.–read Laura Chapman’s post on this blog–back in May, I think–on 50CAN) & IL Stand on Children (less blatantly, but still listed on the “Fix the Formula” hype). In its unadulterated form, this bill removed the $9,000 dedicated funding for special ed. personnel,along w/elimination of about 25 other programs. This bill also relies on revenue but, in IL (a flat tax state), there is no new revenue. Last but not least, in one of the pushing/explaining SB1 videos (hosted by some head of Advance IL), the state superintendent talks about PARCC/standardized testing somehow factoring into this.
To summarize, there was a whole lot more going on in this bill (as w/most bills–think the GOP healthcare bill) than giving more money to low-income schools. And–one last thought–because this bill was so pushed by the aforementioned reformy groups–a whole bunch of us (educators all) figured that this would be an in for the establishment of new charter schools.
Would have agreed more with the bill had the excellent charter school moratorium bill been passed in both chambers.
Wouldn’t you know? That bill died in House Rules Committee.
LikeLike
Sorry–instead of saying “mostly” Bernie Progressive Dems, I meant to say many.
The point being that we who were not in favor of the bill are not conservatives, nor do we disagree w/fixing things. (I think those of you who regularly read Diane’s blog know me by now. I have read Savage Inequalities several times…& cried each time, but maintaining hope that this could, one day, be fixed.)
It’s just that it needed to be done in a bill that would do it the right way, w/actual revenue, not using the questionable evidence based model, not cutting monies to special education (which, of course, as any teacher knows, most often leads to chaos in general ed. classes, so all school populations suffer), not cutting other programs, not including a companion charter moratorium bill and last, but most certainly not least, not being pushed by groups that would use this to further privatize Illinois education.
LikeLike
Again, I meant to say, “INCLUDING a companion charter moratorium bill.”
And it was vetoed just on the basis of the Chicago school funding & pension payment portion, not for any other reason.
LikeLike