Critics take aim at outdated Illinois school funding data

By Jean Lotus Staff reporter

Senate Democrats Toi Hutchinson, Andrew Manar and Iris Martinez criticize outdated school funding predictions at a press conference May 19. (Blueroomstream)

The slow journey to reform school funding in Illinois may have been blown up Friday after Sen. Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) called a press conference alleging Gov. Bruce Rauner had released “fraudulent education funding numbers” to a politically linked chain of newspapers.

The Senate passed Manar’s SB1 school funding bill 35-18, with three lawmakers voting ‘present.’ But shortly after the vote, school superintendents were sent a year-old data analysis from the Illinois State Board of Education. The numbers were from an earlier Manar-sponsored bill, SB 231, which died in 2016.

The information also appeared in the Kankakee Times, one of a chain of weekly newspapers published by conservative radio talk show host Dan Proft, an ally of Bruce Rauner. Republicans are urging the passing of a rival school funding reform bill, SB 1124, sponsored by Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington).

The Kankakee newspaper article showed “winners and losers” data explaining how certain school districts would gain funding, but others would lose 16-44 percent of state funding. The figures were based on the ISBE 2016 analysis of Manar’s previous bill. The SB 231 data, crunched by the ISBE was also published in 2016 by Reboot Illinois. It showed a proposed a two-year “hold harmless” provision that would delay the funding changes. A late-added clarification on the online Kankakee Times article acknowledged that the data was one year old and asserted that ISBE had released no other updated data.

“Those are the last and best numbers on Manar’s school funding formula redux,” said Proft in a message. “This is the same legislation repackaged with a different bill number.” Proft said his publications went with the most recent (2016) numbers, published with a caveat.

“The real question is how can [the Senate] vote on something when they don’t know the financial impacts or have the numbers?” Proft asked.

Data from SB231 was also published in Proft’s other 11 newspapers such as the West Cook News, North Cook News, Sangamon Sun and 14 web-based news blogs.

In a press conference, Manar and several other Senate Democrats said Rauner had released fraudulent information. Manar called the publication of the figures a

“serious violation of trust by the Rauner administration in regards to efforts to reform state funding.” South Chicago Democratic lawmakers Sens. Toi Hutchinson, Michael Hastings, Donne Trotter, Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant and Iris Martinez joined Manar in calling for an investigation into the releasing of the data.

Democrats have complained that Republicans are trying to pit downstate school districts against Chicago Public Schools and rural school districts against suburban ones.

Manar said the State Board of Education had never released an analysis for by-district funding for SB1, which had tweaked the formula. He said he had asked Rauner’s office and Education Secretary Beth Purvis for exact numbers and was told there were none.

Jaclyn Matthews, Illinois State Board of Education spokesperson, declined to comment when asked if the ISBE had created any updated forecasts of any proposed state funding formula since May 2016.

Proft denied that the governor’s office was the source of the data, saying it was acquired from Reboot Illinois in 2016.

Manar said he wanted to make sure school administrators knew the data was not the most recent calculation for the proposed new funding formula.

“Right now I want to make sure school superintendents are aware that outdated information is fraudulently being passed off as up-to-date news about Senate Bill 1,” he said in a statement. “Furthermore, I hope Gov. Rauner and Education Secretary Beth Purvis will follow our lead and alert school officials about this misleading information to set the record straight. Anything less makes them complicit in a concerted effort to jeopardize Illinois’ shot at achieving meaningful school funding reform.”

 

 

 

 

 

— Critics take aim at outdated Illinois school funding data  —