Money is the true source of the town hall and CPS drama

Network television already produces Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med. It now looks like we have a new live-action drama to add to that lineup: Let’s call it “Chicago Ed.”

This latest installment in the Chicago series features passionate, fiery and opinionated characters, all debating how best to lift the city’s public school system out of financial crisis while providing the resources necessary to adequately serve some 330,000 of the city’s children teach .

Tensions had been simmering for months, but after all seven members of the CPS Board of Education announced their resignations more than a week ago, things reached a boiling point. And the drama has been playing out virtually non-stop since then.

The clashes between personalities and ideologies have made for good theater, but the real cause of the conflict remains: money.

The city’s public schools don’t have enough money to provide every student with a world-class education. Relying on the state, borrowing money, and cutting pension payments are temporary stopgap measures that prolong the structural deficits in funding public education.

Even if the district somehow gets out of this year’s budget hole using tax increases, funding or other creative financial magic, another budget deficit awaits next year. This is the true status quo that must be broken.

Deep-rooted funding inequalities

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s passion and commitment to not leaving black and brown children behind is commendable, but his plans are risky and many have questioned his tactics.

However, full attention must be focused on developing a sustainable financing model that provides the resources necessary to prevent the city and county from panicking when it comes time to adopt a new budget or a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union to ratify.

The problems with our city and state education funding are deep-rooted, unfair and vexing. Relying heavily on property taxes as the basis for funding public schools only causes economic inequality to turn into educational inequality.

High-quality properties on the North Shore offer well-funded public education systems – often with lower property tax rates than those in the southern suburbs, where property values ​​are much lower. Many south suburban communities have gone to extremes to provide as much as possible for their schools, a strategy that is having damaging effects on their economies.

In Chicago, the city’s total real estate wealth yields more resources per student than in many suburban communities. But Chicago Public Schools itself has its own version of the haves and have-nots. The city’s top-rated, selective-enrollment schools look and feel like they are in a different city than neighborhood schools that serve lower-income children and lack basic needs in terms of staffing, academic programming, arts and athletics .

The problem is incredibly complicated and has many layers. It won’t be easy to remedy the situation. Regardless of the approach, it will require a firm commitment from everyone to pay more for public education. A 2018 statewide study of education funding found that the poorest children in Illinois needed an additional $7,800 per year to reach the state average for academic achievement.

Education is a “building block” for justice

In theory, the state is supposed to help school districts provide the money needed to fund best practices that research has linked to better student performance through its evidence-based school funding formula (EBF). But the state simply doesn’t have the money to comply with the formula; The EBF is currently underfunded by over $2 billion.

As for federal funding, it is not enough to close the gap.

Some people are lucky enough not to be affected by this dilemma and can afford a first-class education at a private school. Others are lucky because their children have secured a place in the few public schools that offer a quality education. The rest of us fight. Some have given up completely. The city’s dramatic loss of black residents over the past 40 years has largely been driven by families with school-age children.

There is so much at stake in how public schools are handled.

As a nation, we only need to look back at history to recognize the power of a good education and how it has helped generations overcome poverty, discrimination and terror. Education has always been the most important building block for justice.

Freeing public schools from the glaring inequities that have existed for decades is perhaps the best way to eliminate inequalities in other aspects of life, from wealth to housing to employment to the criminal justice system.

Digging deep into our collective pockets to pay the price of a world-class education for all children is a down payment on everything Chicagoans claim to want in this city.

It depends on whether you are willing to pay for it.

Alden Loury is data projects editor for WBEZ and writes a column for the Sun-Times.

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