Chicago Tribune: Voting in Favor of Bad Schools

John Tillman is featured in the Chicago Tribune. He discusses school choice.

She was a quiet, dignified African-American, perhaps early 40s. Her eyes had spark and she seemed determined, both good signs. But the desperation in her voice was overpowering.

“I need money to move.”

I was just 23 years old then, a rookie management trainee learning how to interview prospective sales people for the call center where I worked.

“Why do you want to move?” I innocently asked.

After all, no one wakes up in the morning seeking a call-center career. They choose to work in call centers because they can make good money quickly — if they can sell. I knew that desperation turns many quiet people, like this woman, into tenacious salespeople.

“I need to move to get my kids away from the gangs,” she answered.

It was 1982 and I was sitting in an office just north of Eight Mile Road, the border between Detroit and Southfield, Mich., made famous by the rapper Eminem. I knew a bit about what the woman meant; I lived in a marginal neighborhood near Wayne State University. Bad things happened regularly. Looking at her address, I knew her neighborhood was much worse.

“Have you ever sold anything before?”

“No, but I can learn.”

I don’t remember much more about her. I don’t even remember if I hired her.

But this is how I first learned about school choice.

The memory of that woman came flooding back to me last Wednesday as I listened to the Illinois House debate the fate of 30,000 children languishing in some of Chicago’s worst performing schools. Senate Bill 2494 would have established a pilot school-voucher program in Chicago to provide poor students with “opportunity scholarships” to attend better private schools.

The bill had passed the Illinois Senate with bipartisan support.

This should have been a layup for Democrats and Republicans in the House.

It wasn’t. It wouldn’t have cost suburban schools money, it would have held Chicago Public Schools accountable for the failure of its schools and it would have given parents a fighting chance to give their children a better education.

I sat stunned when it became evident that the bill would fail. I thought of that quiet, determined woman from 1982. It was a heartbreaking moment.

Illinois parents were pleading for a chance to send their children to better schools.

“You can’t have it,” said the Illinois House of Representatives.

The bottom line is this: The Illinois Education Association opposed this bill, as did the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Chicago Teachers Union.

Keep in mind who said yes to kids, and who said yes to union lobbyists. November is not too far off.

John Tillman is the CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute.