July 12, 2019
Sauk Valley Media
KIDS survey should be launching pad for change
The headlines were alarming – a study showing that three-quarters of Illinois students aren’t ready for kindergarten when they get there.
The results of the Illinois State Board of Education’s Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS) were released June 25. This was the second year for the study that uses three primary measurements of kindergarten readiness: social and emotional development; language and literacy development; and math. The assessment is done by teachers 40 days into kindergarten.
The latest survey was done last fall, and it showed that 40 days into the school year, 74% of nearly 116,000 students measured weren’t fully prepared for kindergarten. Students in the Sauk Valley didn’t fare much better in the study. A total of 1,318 kindergartners were rated and only three school districts – Ashton-Franklin Center, Chadwick-Milledgeville and Erie – had more than half of their students considered ready in the three major developmental areas.
Many educators aren’t sold on the 40-day survey as an accurate indicator of district performance. Not all kids go to preschool, and because this is a measurement of what students knew coming in, it’s unfair to have this survey reflect poorly on the school districts.
The numbers do, however, give the districts some idea of how wide of a developmental gap must be bridged when a new group enters kindergarten. This type of study doesn’t strive for perfection in its measurements, but it does succeed in identifying problems with the way we approach early childhood education, both locally and at the state level.
As with most education problems, the conversation first turns to funding. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s first budget includes a 10% increase for the Early Childhood Block Grant program, but it isn’t nearly enough – only 30% of the state’s students go to state-funded preschools. The program is now funded at $543.7 million. Illinois spends about $15,337 per student in K-12, but less than $3,500 on each child younger than 6.
The investment can’t stop with the dollars that go directly to the schools – more money must go to support services for children and their families. Income disparities impact access to early childhood education programs, and kids on free and reduced lunch programs fared much worse in the study.
Access is already limited in many rural districts just because of their size. For example, Paw Paw doesn’t have a pre-K school program and only has two in-home day care providers. None of Paw Paw’s students came into kindergarten ready in all three of the primary categories measured in the latest KIDS survey.
The Chadwick-Milledgeville district, on the other hand, landed in the top 4% of the survey statewide. The district had 75% of its incoming kindergarten students adequately prepared in all three primary areas. That district has a pre-K class, two in-home day care providers in Milledgeville, and a park district-run Tot Time preschool program that meets 2 or 3 days a week.
While it’s easy to talk about what the KIDS survey doesn’t do, it would be wise to focus on what it does accomplish. It turns a spotlight on what is happening with our children in the all-important formative years of their social and educational development. The numbers in the survey don’t tell us everything we need to know about early childhood education with pinpoint accuracy. What they do tell us is that we need to do much better and we need to start immediately.
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July 10, 2019
(Arlington Heights) Daily Herald
Issues unfortunately muddled in cancellation of band’s performance at fair
These days in American public discourse, it can be hard to decide which -ism you should be fighting. Case in point: The Pritzker administration’s decision to cancel an appearance at the Du Quoin State Fair by the Southern rock band Confederate Railroad.
The governor’s office says the Aug. 27 show would “promote symbols of racism” — to wit, the use of the Confederate Civil War flag on the band’s logo, a detail somehow overlooked when the booking was announced last month.
Country music legend Charlie Daniels responded that the cancellation is “giving in to fascism, plain and simple.”
And then there is the matter of social criticism. Many critics of the cancellation wonder why the state is so squeamish about the logo of a country band playing in southern Illinois but has no similar qualms about slating controversial hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg, whose work has been criticized variously as racist, misogynistic and hom*ophobic, to perform in the state capital. The difference, apparently, is embedded in intent.
A spokeswoman explains in a letter posted at the Capitol Fax blog, capitolfax.com: “The Confederate flag symbolizes slavery and the rebellion against the United States, and it is exactly what our state’s greatest son, President Lincoln, was fighting against. This symbol of hate, oppression and bloodshed is categorically different from political satire.”
All true. But would that the entire controversy could be dismissed so easily.
Indeed, the Confederate flag, which some deniers want to describe as a harmless historical emblem representing an independent spirit, was the war banner for a traitorous rebellion fought to try to protect the institution of human bondage. One can only wonder whether the nation of Germany — or any civilized government — would provide resources to performers who proudly brandished a Nazi flag under some pretense that it wasn’t a symbol of hate but a declaration of proud individualism.
Yet, it’s also true that Snoop Dogg’s more than 16 albums, hundreds of songs, numerous videos and countless writings and interviews are riddled with overt references — including one album cover design, changed before the record was released, that showed a tag marked “Trump” hanging from the toe of a corpse — that surely offend the values of the state of Illinois. Does dismissing such references as “satire” make them palatable?
This is not an inconsequential question, and — aside from the issue of how much all this will cost the state — the administration owes a more detailed answer to it. Absent that, we are left to rail at each other across lines of background and geography, sinking ever deeper into divisions that prevent agreement and compromise on more-substantive public policies.
There is, of course, a huge distinction between a bloody rebellion and a tasteless piece of art. But it is easily muddled when people are offended by offensive symbols. Fortunately for its part, Confederate Railroad resisted a temptation to wade into cultural division, issuing a restrained statement that encouraged fans to continue to support other acts on the fair bill. But, elsewhere, much of the reaction has been more combative. Support for the band has swelled amid appearances of an elitist double standard, while the serious issues underlying the debate go unacknowledged.
Thus has a legitimate swipe at racism been transformed into a false narrative of “fascism” — all flowing from matters ostensibly defined as simple entertainment. If nothing else, we hope that’s a lesson schedulers keep in mind for future events that will bear the imprint of the state of Illinois.
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July 13, 2019
The (Champaign) News-Gazette
Illinois may be a failing state, but its legislators are flush.
God bless the black-hearted members of the Illinois House and Senate — they stand to get a windfall pay raise that will place them among the top-five highest-paid state legislatures in the country.
Two former state legislators filed a lawsuit challenging the propriety of pay freezes members of the House and Senate voluntarily — and symbolically — took between 2009 and 2016 to show hard-times budget solidarity with the public. Now a Cook County judge has paved the way for the lawsuit to proceed, creating the likelihood of a salary bonanza.
Financial analysts at Wirepoints outlined the damages to the state treasury.
“That could cost taxpayers an additional $13 million in total back pay for lawmakers. On top of that, taxpayers could also be forced to pay penalty interest on the back pay. And worst of all, those higher salaries will end up boosting the pension benefits of lawmakers by hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“An average career lawmaker retiring in 2020 at age 60 can expect to receive more than $375,000 in additional pension benefits over their retirement if their 2020 salary is boosted to $81,700,” write Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner.
Illinois lawmakers could soon be receiving the nation’s fourth-highest legislative salaries as a result of a lawsuit filed by state Sens. Michael Noland of Elgin and James Clayborne of East St. Louis.
They allege language in the Illinois Constitution bars legislators from making any changes in their compensation during their terms of office. Judge Franklin Valderrama agreed.
Legislators are currently paid $67,836 in salary in addition to a pension and generous perks. The vast majority of them also receive generous stipends for serving in party or committee leadership positions.
Legislative salaries have been a touchy issue for years in Springfield. Each time they raised their pay, taxpayers complained. So legislators ultimately established a bogus salary commission that authorizes pay hikes without legislators having to vote for them and risk public ire.
Now they have arranged for a judge to strike down the pay hikes they appeared to voluntarily reject.
The good news, of course, is members of the House and Senate are worth whatever amount they’re paid. After all, look at how well our effectively bankrupt ship of state is run. That kind of management doesn’t come free.
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