Editorial -- Adopt state superintendent's school budget

Adopt state superintendent's school budget

Money buys opportunity and educational opportunity leads to high income. Education also brings good health, friends, personal fulfillment and all of life's good things.

Anyone seeking proof of these axioms need only to take a stroll on the graceful campus of the University of Chicago, whose endowment is worth nearly $3 billion or the campus New Trier High School, whose Winnetka parents happily spend nearly as much per capita on students as a city laborer earns in annual salary.

Alumni of these fine institutions lead the nation in earnings, in the importance of their work, in the quality of their lives -- in all ways, from the superiority of their health care to their enviable vacation spots.

That's inevitable, inevitable as taxes, as inevitable as the fact that our government will spend our tax dollars.

As the Illinois State legislature cobbles its fiscal year 2002 budget next month, we demand that our statesmen allocate sufficient money to educate the State's youngsters at the level proposed by the state's top educator.

State Superintendent of Education max McGee is proposing a fiscal year 2002 budget of $7.9 billion, down $9 million from last year's budget. We trust our lawmakers will do no less than adopt his budget, a smaller budget than last year's, despite the fact that two constituent groups are increasing in number and in need.

The percentage of Illinois's low-income students has increased in the last decade to 37 percent of the State's 1.9 million elementary and high school students, up from 28 percent and the percentage of minority students rose to 39 percent, an increase from 34 percent in 1990.

We argue that these students need state financial support even more than students such as New Trier's, not as any kind of compensatory support, but in recognition of the fact that the state must meet its responsibility to give low-income and minority kids a fighting chance.

McGee wants increases in five key programs which he says will help mitigate the effect of dozens examples of substandard state facilities and programs.

One glaring deficiency is inadequate teacher training. In many high schools, up to 40 percent of classes in high-poverty areas are taught by underqualified teachers, teachers who lack even a college minor in the field they teach, according to McGee.

McGee's budget would add $5 million to make sure the state's learning standards are taught in all classrooms and he wants to add $7.2 million to the state's early childhood education program and start it before kids enter kindergarten.

He wants to improve teaching quality by strengthening the state's mentoring program, at a cost of $4.4 million over last year. The program would use the State's outstanding teachers to actually show others how it's done, from the use of videotaped classroom sessions to the use of rigorous teacher-training materials by teachers who need more training.

He wants $10.5 million more next year for support for schools in academic difficulty, a component of which is help for youngsters on the verge of dropping out or being expelled, from after-school and alternative school programs to school-to-work and extended-day programs.

McGee reported to the legislature that some 100,000 Illinois kids are at risk due to poverty, family breakdown, teen pregnancy, gangs, crime, alcohol and drug abuse. "We cannot continue to let them fail," is the way he put it.

For all these reasons, and for the hundreds of others covered in the superintendent's 261-page budget and report to the legislature, we urge passage of the proposed budget.

Janet Knupp, head of Chicago Public Education Fund, likes to say that we must spend money to educate the 25 percent of our population that are students for the sake of 100 percent of our future.

We concur and we insist that our sState's lawmakers adopt McGee's budget and buy into the future, for the sake of all our kids, rich and poor.

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