Illinois Needs to Learn to Fix Its Schools

by Aon Hussain Just last week, the Chicago Sun Times published an interesting article about the state of rising teacher salaries. In some parts of Illinois, it is not uncommon to see some teachers earning six figures. In addition to high teacher salaries, administrators of various school districts are making a lot of money even as school...

by Aon Hussain

Just last week, the Chicago Sun Times published an interesting article about the state of rising teacher salaries. In some parts of Illinois, it is not uncommon to see some teachers earning six figures.

In addition to high teacher salaries, administrators of various school districts are making a lot of money even as school districts begin tightening their belts. Jerald Jacobs makes a keen observation in the Peoria Journal Star about District 186 Superintendent Dr. Walter Milton and school board president Bill Looby and calls them out for budget cutting even as administrators are handsomely paid.

They have met and are trying, according The State Journal-Register, to “grasp how much we’re going to come short revenue-wise” . . . The District 186 administration salary averages $120,000. 

While there are many problems on the local level, unfortunately the state is just as incompetent. Just recently, there was a tremendous amount of uproar when former state representative Michael Smith was appointed to the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board. For $94,000 a year, a broke Illinois will pay Smith to attend a single one to two hour meeting each month.

Although there is plenty of research that shows the effectiveness of charter schools on both children’s overall educational successes and on the state’s wallet, educational reform is not gaining much traction in Springfield.

Additionally, people actually like the notion of schools adapting to markets. In the Wall Street Journal,Robert Seiler writes about how children in schools have decreased by almost 157,000 kids, yet an influx of more than 81,000 new teachers have been hired in public schools.

If the average business, having the assets and revenue of the average school district, knew so little about the demographics of its “customer” base as the school districts and acted in the same fashion as the schools, it would be out of business. 

Aside from unsustainable spending, taxpayers also suffer from a lack of information. Steve Sullivan writes in the Springfield State Journal Register about how taxpayers are shunned from contractual deliberations between the District 186 School Board and the teachers unions.

The District 186 school board and the Springfield Education Association union bosses don’t want to tell taxpayers what funding demands will be made on them until after the teachers’ contract is voted on. . . It is obvious that neither the board nor the union bosses want any input from the people upon whose backs this contract will be funded. 

Through our Liberty Leaders program, the Illinois Policy Institute conducts local transparency audits of various government entities, including school districts, to make sure that taxpayers are aware of where there money is being spent. Important information that we look to grade include salaries, expenditures, and the union contracts that Mr. Sullivan mentions. Giving taxpayers increased information to things like contract discussions is necessary to curb the unsustainable spending in the educational sector.