Unsurprisingly, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel have rejected the idea of the the state taking over the Chicago Public Schools out of hand:
Illinois Senate President John Cullerton says in a statement that the plan backed by Gov. Bruce Rauner is “mean spirited and evidence of their total lack of knowledge of the real problems facing Chicago Public Schools.”
Cullerton says the “ridiculous” idea is distracting Republican leaders from other state issues.
The nation’s third-largest school district is facing a nearly $1 billion budget deficit, due largely to pension debt.
and
A spokeswoman for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he is “100 percent opposed” to a plan from Republicans in the Illinois Legislature that would have the state take over the financially troubled Chicago Public Schools.
Spokeswoman Kelley Quinn says if GOP Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner wanted to help Chicago students he would pass a state budget that “fully funds education and treats CPS students like every other child in the state.”
I understand where they’re coming from but I wish that President Cullerton and Mayor Emanuel had proposals other than the state issuing blank checks and continuing the same old process of endlessly increasing debt and taxes.
More than anything else Illinois and Chicago need economic growth. I’m missing how increasing the debt overhang and the tax burden will effect that.
Which is why the state is doomed. The daughter is off to college in August, and we will no longer be IL residents.
BTW – anyone heard anything lately about the McDonald shooting? Me neither. That didn’t take long.