Sept. 28, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Matt Hawkins is a voter worth wooing. He’s black, a military veteran and a politically independent voter who is plugged into social and economic issues in his hometown of East St. Louis.

But the campaign rhetoric in the contentious 12th Congressional District race between Republican Jason Plummer and Democrat Bill Enyart has left Hawkins so turned off that he plans to vote for little-known Green Party candidate Paula Bradshaw.

“She has an agenda; she’s talking about environmental justice. She’s saying, ‘Make sure we give people a chance before we poison them.’ Is that so bad? Is that so un-Democratic or un-Republican that you can’t mention it?” Hawkins, 45, said.

“She has the courage and the agenda that give me the belief that if there was some way she made it to Washington, she would make sure both parties grew up and started acting like adults. For me, that’s the kind of candidate we need in Washington.”

Money has been pouring into the 12th District race, which the New York Times identified as one of 22 most-competitive toss-up races in the country — and for good reason. The 12th District, now stretching from industrial Alton north of St. Louis to rural Cairo at the southern tip of the state, has been in Democratic hands for 20 years. U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello has had the seat since 1988 and is retiring after the election. Before Costello, Democrats Paul Simon, Ken Gray and Glenn Poshard represented the region from 1973 until 1993.

That kind of political longevity is contributing to the frenzy over the seat, said John Jackson, a visiting professor at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

“The important thing, beyond the national implications this year, is that once somebody’s in (that seat), they stay in until they die or retire. We keep them forever,” Jackson said. “So whoever wins will be the odds-on favorite to be our representative for southern Illinois for the next 20 or 25 years.”

Plummer, 30, of Fairview Heights, ran for Illinois lieutenant governor in 2010 and lost. His wealthy family owns R.P. Lumber Co.

Enyart, 62, of Belleville, is a lawyer and a retired adjutant general in the Illinois National Guard. Enyart got a late start in the race,when he was nominated to replace Brad Harriman, who dropped out in May citing medical problems.

Bradshaw is a 59-year-old nurse and activist from Carbondale.

Plummer and Enyart have spent a great deal of time during debates sparring over who has more wealth, who has more military experience, who did or didn’t release their tax returns and who is more like the presidential candidate of their own party. Both have flooded the southern Illinois airwaves with attack ads. Neither candidate has a political record for voters to reference because neither has ever held office.

Hawkins, who watched the 12th District debates online, calls their squabbles “one-upsmanship garbage.”

“If I want to see a fight, I’ll watch boxing. If I want to see a collision, I’ll watch football. When I watch politics, I want to see dedication and professionalism. I want to see real efforts to understand the problems, so we can find solutions,” he said. “I don’t really care about 90 percent of what they talked about.”

Plummer and Enyart have touched on such topics as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, taxation, Medicare and the economy during their debates. But much of the news coverage has noted their jabs and personal attacks during the events.

Jon McLean, chairman of the St. Clair County Republican Committee, said Republican voters in the predominantly Democratic Metro-East county are “very excited” about the 12th District race, noting that this district has not had a competitive race since the late 1990s. He said Plummer is young, fresh and without the baggage other candidates have.

“I think the congressional race locally has a lot of people energized. In Illinois, I think a lot of Republican voters feel their vote doesn’t matter much in the presidential race,” he said. “But in this race, I think they feel we can elect someone who can go to Washington and not vote with Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank, someone who will not be part of this so-called Democratic machine that for years we have become so upset with.”

Meanwhile, Jim Kirkpatrick, chairman of the Williamson County Democratic Committee, a rural southern Illinois county that includes Marion just off Interstate 57, said Enyart has gained a lot of ground in a short amount of time and has a chance to defeat Plummer.

“It’s definitely a crucial seat. But I think Gen. Enyart is a very good candidate. I think he’s doing everything he can to win. I’ve got nothing against Jason Plummer, but, quite honestly, I don’t think he has the experience,” Kirkpatrick said. “If they’re negotiating the future of Scott Air Force Base, who do you want at the table: the two-star general or somebody who’s not really got that much military experience?”

Recent polling by Democrats and Republicans show the candidates neck and neck, but each with an edge over the other, depending on the poll. Many observers agree the race is too close to call and will come down to the wire.

“I don’t think it’s a lead pipe cinch either way,” Jackson said, “I would say whoever does the best job in the ground game in the end and getting out their own people is going to win the game. They’re about equal on the air war on TV.”

Earlier this week, the House Majority PAC, a super PAC for the House Democrats, canceled a large television ad buy in the race, saying the ads are not needed because a poll by the group shows Enyart ahead. Republicans say their polling shows Plummer ahead.

“It’s interesting that the Majority PAC is going to pull out and take their money and go into other races. I think that’s positive,” McLean said. “But I also am cautiously optimistic, because I know that as the race gets closer, they can move money around very quickly. They’re not completely gone. They’ve been on television. They’ve had mail pieces in the mailbox. It’s not like they’re abandoning their candidate. I still think they’re in the race; I just don’t think things are going as well as they originally thought they would.”

Kirkpatrick disagreed, noting that Enyart can capitalize on recent missteps by the Mitt Romney presidential campaign and build more momentum heading into November.

“Both sides are doing everything they can to win it. I really think the Democrats have a good chance of retaining it,” he said.

Sept. 17, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Into its second week, the Chicago teachers strike offers a host of known unknowns — the strike’s actual cost and duration, the outcome of negotiations, and court intervention.

But one thing is certain, the strike has affected the children, particularly the neediest and most vulnerable among them, as the school district scrambles to provide them with food and safety.

The immediate loss of instruction and safety is evident now, but the impact of the strike and the public’s loss of confidence in a struggling school system will be felt for years to come.

For now, officials don’t know what the historic strike — the first since 1987 — is costing the Chicago Public Schools system and taxpayers each day, a spokeswoman said Monday.

For now, a Cook County judge declined to rule Monday on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s request for a temporary restraining order to end the strike, because the strike could end any day now.

For now, the Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates is expected to vote on a tentative contract deal Tuesday. Best-case scenario is students could be back in school Wednesday, after seven days away from their classrooms.

CPS spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said the costs to the taxpayer, like the contract negotiations themselves, are a tangle of “several variables.”

“We don’t know how many days it will continue, and we don’t know how many students we’ll be serving at our Children First sites,” she said.

Children First sites are 147 Chicago school locations where the neediest of the district’s 402,000 students can receive two meals each school day. The students have nowhere else to go and qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches. The sites are staffed with volunteers and CPS administrative staff, so there will be some cost associated with it, but it’s unclear how much at this time, Ziegler said.

“We have a real need to make sure we’re helping to feed our student body, as well as provide a safe and engaging place to go during the day because not everybody has alternate options,” she said. “So the cost of this strike largely will be related to what we need to do around providing these services through these Children First sites.”

The district does not receive government funding on days when children are not in school, but it will receive money on days that would have to be made up as a result of the strike.

Two major sticking points remain in the contract negotiations: a new teacher-evaluation system and job security.

Cook County Judge Peter Flynn on Monday declined to hold an immediate hearing on the city’s request for a temporary restraining order, saying there could be a hearing Wednesday.

The city filed a request for the temporary restraining order, saying the strike violates state law, which prohibits teachers from striking over such matters as layoff and recall policies, teacher evaluations, class sizes and length of the school day and year.

“The CTU’s repeated statements and recent advertising campaign have made clear that these are exactly the subjects over which the CTU is striking,” reads the city’s motion.

The city also said the strike should be ended for public health and safety issues, including providing nutritious meals and a safe environment for students.

In a statement, CTU fired back, saying the city’s motion was vindictive.

“CPS’s spur-of-the-moment decision to seek injunctive relief some six days later appears to be a vindictive act instigated by the mayor,” the statement reads. “This attempt to thwart our democratic process is consistent with (Emanuel’s) bullying behavior toward public school educators.”

Regardless of the cost, Chicago’s public school students, especially those from poor families, will pay the highest price for the strike, said Jessica Handy, policy director at Stand for Children Illinois, which champions issues related to public education and graduation rates.

“The strike in ’87, that went on for 19 days. Ultimately, it was resolved, but so many children left the district. If they could afford to, they went to private school or to the suburbs if their families could make that sacrifice. If they couldn’t, the kids stayed here and missed school 19 days,” she said.

“The district laid off 700 positions, and with the savings from those layoffs they were able to afford the raises from the strike. Who won there? I think it was unfair for the children and the families and Chicago and the mayor and the union and the teachers. It didn’t serve anybody well. It depleted enrollment and hurt the neediest children the most.”

Sept. 12, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — A new teacher-evaluation process in Chicago public schools could separate the wheat from the chafe in inner-city classrooms, and that has struck fear in the heart of thousands of picketing teachers locked in a bitter battle over the matter.

Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being judged on factors they can’t control. Fear of being told they’re not good enough. Fear of being dumped.

It’s not surprising to many observers that a new state-mandated evaluation process is at the root of the first Chicago teachers strike in 25 years. It’s a big change, but one that’s been a long time coming.

“This is about changing the fundamental relationship between teachers and school systems that teachers have dominated for a long time. That’s threatening for teachers and for their union, and that’s why these fights can be so vicious,” said Marcus Winters, a senior fellow at the New York-based Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning policy group that is following the situation in Chicago. Winters also is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

Most states, including  Colorado, Florida, New Jersey and New York and Washington, D.C., have revamped their teacher-evaluation systems or are working on reforms. President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative encouraged states to implement new evaluation procedures to boost teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom.

“Illinois is in wide company here. I think that’s one of the reasons why this argument has been so strong by the unions,” said Winters, who has done extensive research on the teacher-evaluation system in the United States. “They see the tide really has been turning and that more and more states are moving in this direction toward a system that has much better evaluations for teachers than we’ve had in place,”.

As the third day of the historic Chicago teachers strike closed Wednesday, those familiar with the contract negotiations said the new evaluation system, which would assess teachers on students’ progress during the year, remained a point of contention.

The state law, signed in 2010, requires all Illinois public schools to implement a new teacher-evaluation system gradually by the 2016-17 school year. Chicago public schools are trying to implement a plan that measures student improvement on standardized tests and counts student “growth,” or lack thereof, as part — at least 25 percent — of teachers’ performance evaluations.

Salaries, tenure and job security all will be on the line.

And that has caused teachers to worry that the new system will penalize them unfairly for factors beyond their control — student poverty, hunger, homelessness and uninvolved parents among them.

But others say their complaints are unfounded, as inner-city teachers elsewhere have dealt with the same issues and have managed to excel. They say the new system is superior to the existing evaluation process, which is simpler, based on observation and rarely dings teachers for performing unsatisfactorily.

And they say it will shed light on teacher performance: good teachers will be recognized and rewarded for excellence; failing teachers will be cut loose.

They also point out that Chicago teachers were involved in the developing the new evaluation system.

“We’re seeing some of these picket signs saying, ‘Don’t judge us exclusively on our kids’ standardized tests.’ It’s kind of frustrating when you see how much thought had gone into these evaluation discussions,” said Jessica Handy, policy director at Stand for Children Illinois, which champions issues related to public education and graduation rates.

Handy said teachers, for years, have not gotten much feedback from their evaluators, which made it difficult for them, their schools and their students to improve.

“I think we can all agree they’ve done a crummy job of evaluations in the past. The whole point of an evaluation should be to have a dialogue and help teachers improve,” she said. “We shouldn’t be treating the 22-year-old college student just out of school like a super hero that gets thrown into a class with 32 kids and be expected to work magic with no support. We’ve got to support our educators.”

Sounds reasonable, right? Employees in other lines of work regularly are evaluated on their performance and meeting objectives.

The teachers do have some valid concerns, said Sue Sporte, director of research operations at the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, which researches student success and school improvement matters with an eye toward reform.

How do you assess progress of students who already are at the top of the scale and can’t grow as much because they’ve already got the material down? What about learning-challenged students who come to school hungry or whose parents never read to them? Should they be judged the same as middle-income students whose parents are involved? Should there be a sliding scale?

And what about educators who co-teach? If one teaches math for students in both classrooms and the other teaches reading for students in both classrooms, who gets credit for student growth? What about high school students who have different teachers for every subject? Who gets credit for reading growth?

Those are the kinds of questions being hammered out behind closed doors, Sporte said.

“It’s not as straightforward as it sounds,” she said. “It sounds like, ‘Well, yeah. You saw these kids. Did they learn or did they not?’”

So is it possible to determine who the best and worst teachers are? It depends, she said.

“It depends on what you value that your teachers do. Is it about raising test scores? Is it about raising kids who love school? Is it about developing curiosity? Is it about helping kids develop good habits so they show up and do homework?” she said. “What is it that the public and the parents value in their teachers, because what you measure is what you ultimately value.”

And, ultimately, the reluctance in Chicago comes back to fear, Handy said.

“I would say there’s a lot of rhetoric around it. I think if you tell teachers that you’re going to be judged based on student performance, it’s a scary prospect, especially for teachers who do work in those underserved areas,” she said, noting that underserved children can excel, given the right opportunities. Providing teachers with support and feedback is part of that.

“I would say it’s so important for us if we want a fair system, if we want equity, if we want to get those kids all the support they need in school. We have to support our teachers with honest evaluations and keep those best teachers in the classrooms.”

Sept. 10, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – As striking Chicago public school teachers took to the streets to picket Monday, one taxpayer-minded organization criticized the current salaries of the district’s school administrators and teachers, saying they add up to too much for too little.

Jim Tobin, president of Chicago-based Taxpayers United of America, an organization that advocates for tax relief and responsible use of tax money, said the average teacher pay in the Chicago public schools is $76,000, not including employee benefits or pensions.

“That’s $76,000 for nine months’ employment in a system that isn’t even mediocre. This is one of the lowest-performing school districts in the country,” Tobin said. “And they want a 29-percent pay raise. It just boggles the mind. These salaries are out of the world.”

The Chicago Teachers Union announced at 10 p.m. Sunday that negotiations between teachers and the city of Chicago, which operates Chicago Public Schools, had broken down and that teachers would be on strike beginning Monday morning.

It’s the first time Chicago teachers have gone on strike since 1987. Chicago has the nation’s third-largest public school system, with more than 30,000 educators and 400,000 students at 675 schools.

Midnight Sunday was the deadline for negotiations. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said only two issues – a teacher-evaluation system that links teacher performance to students’ standardized test scores and principals’ ability to let go of teachers who don’t make the grade – remained unresolved.

The Chicago school district is grappling with a $700 million budget shortfall.

“The issues that remain are minor,” Emanuel said Sunday night. “This is totally unnecessary. It’s avoidable, and our kids don’t deserve this. … This is a strike of choice.”

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said the union and school district officials found common ground on compensation but that cuts to health benefits remained a sticking point.

“This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could have avoided,” she said. “We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve.”

David Vitale, president of the Chicago Board of Education, said officials offered teachers a 16 percent pay raise over four years, which was double the amount of a previous offer. He described the negotiations as “extraordinarily difficult.”

According to a Chicago Teachers Union news release, the two sides also negotiated a variety of other matters during the talks. Among them:

• Smaller class sizes.
• More libraries.
• Air-conditioned classrooms.
• More social workers and counselors to help students.
• Restoring art, music, language, technology and physical education classes.
• Textbooks for students on the first day of school instead of waiting several weeks for the materials.
• Training for teachers.
• Concessions for nursing mothers.

Negotiations resumed Monday.

Tobin described as “ridiculous” the raises Chicago teachers are seeking, adding that school administrators are paid even more for doing less. According to 2011 salary figures provided by Taxpayers United, the top administrator in Chicago Public Schools, Chief Executive Officer Jean- Claude Brizard, earned $250,000. Dozens of principals in the list of top-100 salaries in Chicago Public Schools earned $140,000 to $150,000.

“The purpose of the government schools is not to provide education for children but to provide employees with huge salaries and benefits,” Tobin said. “If (teachers) really cared about the children they would be in school and trying to get these kids a better education. But they’re basically concerned about lining their own pockets.”

Teachers at Chicago’s charter schools are not part of the Chicago Teachers Union, and students and educators at those schools were in class Monday.

Charter schools are public schools that are not restricted by the same guidelines as traditional public schools, but they are accountable for achieving certain goals and results, as set forth in their charters. Parents can choose to send their children to charter schools as an option to other, low-performing schools, and they can do so for no extra cost. About 52,000 students attend charter schools in Chicago.

John Tillman, chief executive officer of the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think-tank, on Monday urged those at the bargaining table in Chicago to focus on reforms that empower parents rather than perpetuating “a broken system.” He suggested expanding the number of charter schools in Chicago, establishing opportunity scholarships and continuing to offer merit pay for good teachers who deserve to be recognized and rewarded.

Once those things occur, Tillman said, “…we can begin to chip away at the monopoly that the Chicago Teachers Union has over the city’s educational system.”

“We must empower parents to choose what is best for their children, instead of letting Karen Lewis decide when kids can and cannot learn,” he said.

Sept. 6, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois taxpayers continue to pay for more local units of government — nearly 7,000 — than any other state, according to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

That includes municipalities, townships, library districts, school districts, park districts, water and sanitary districts, mosquito-abatement districts, airport and transit authorities, hospital boards, tax-increment-financing districts — all of which provide services for Illinois taxpayers.

But services come with a cost, says one government watchdog. Cons? They’re expensive to operate. They duplicate services. Many lack transparency. It’s exhausting to monitor all of them and how they’re spending money.

Pros?

“They’re good if you want to be employed as a politician,” said Brian Costin, director of government reform for the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

Illinois has 6,968 units of local government, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s preliminary 2012 Census of Governments, released last week. Considering the state’s population of 12.8 million, that means there’s one governmental body for about every 1,800 residents.

“You could go to a local government meeting every day of the week and still not be able to make all the meetings,” Costin said. “I think that’s something where citizens get discouraged. They say, ‘I can’t keep up on everything that’s going on, so I’m just not going to participate.’”

Illinois leaves No. 2 Pennsylvania in the dust by more than 2,000. The Keystone State has 4,905 units of local government. Rounding out the top 10:

• Texas: 4,856,
• California: 4,350,
• Kansas: 3,806,
• Missouri: 3,752,
• Ohio: 3,702,
• Minnesota: 3,633,
• New York: 3,454,
• Wisconsin: 3,123.

The 10 states with the fewest units of local government:

• District of Columbia: 2,
• Hawaii: 21,
• Rhode Island: 134,
• Alaska: 177,
• Nevada: 190,
• Delaware: 338,
• Maryland: 347,
• Virginia: 497,
• Louisiana: 530,
• New Hampshire: 542.

Illinois lost a few governmental bodies in the past five years. The 2007 Census of Governments showed Illinois had 6,994 local units — still No. 1 among the other states.

Still, consolidating or eliminating local government is not easy. Voters have to push for a ballot referendum, and officials and lobbyists often resist the idea, because someone most likely will be out of a job. Occasionally, bodies decide on their own to merge.

“I think it’s easier to create a new one than to consolidate,” Costin said, noting that the creation of tax-increment-financing, or TIF, districts has surged throughout Illinois. All it requires is a majority vote of the overlapping taxing bodies to approve a TIF. These special taxing districts funnel money to areas that local officials deem blighted in an effort to attract development.

Illinois in 2011 authorized a 17-member Local Government Consolidation Commission, charged with examining local governments and, among other things, reducing “the multiplicity of local governments” and eliminating “overlapping and duplicating of unnecessary powers.”

Members include state senators, state representatives, residents appointed by the governor and people who represent various units of local government. The commission is supposed to file a report by the end of 2012 but is seeking more time.

Illinois currently has 2,831 “general purpose” units of government, such as municipalities, counties, villages and townships. It also has 4,137 “special purpose” units, including 3,232 special districts and 905 independent school districts. Special districts include mosquito-abatement districts, sanitary districts and transit authorities.

Illinois has 1,400 townships alone, the most of any state. Townships, which are a taxing body, usually staff crews for rural road maintenance and snow removal. They sometimes undertake additional roles.

In a Sept. 3 editorial, Chicago-based government watchdog the Better Government Association called for township reform in Illinois.

“In fact, Illinois law actually requires very little of townships — some provide welfare services and run food pantries — but those functions could be incorporated into nearby towns and villages that already offer similar programs,” BGA President Andy Shaw wrote. “Still, townships continue to hoard tax dollars and sit on cash cushions that would make King Midas jealous.”

Costin said he believes Illinoisans are ready to talk about consolidation of governmental services but they have little power to force the conversation.

“If there’s no legal avenue for the citizens to push for consolidation, I don’t see a lot of the agencies themselves saying, ‘Let’s make an effort to see how we can save the taxpayers money,’” he said.

Sept. 4, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — When it comes to attendance, Illinois’ congressional delegation earns above-average marks.

But attendance and missed votes don’t tell the full story about a congressman’s performance, according to one Illinois political observer.

“You count what you can. But for the average voter who’s maybe not very engaged, they’re going to be looking for these kinds of cues that give them some sense of how effective somebody is,” said longtime Illinois political observer Kent Redfield. “Whether they take it seriously and, for better or worse, whether they miss a lot of roll calls are measures.”

All of Illinois’ seats in the U.S. House of Representatives — 18 in all after losing one in the redistricting process — are up for grabs in November.

Of the state’s 19 sitting U.S. representatives, only Democrats Bobby Rush of District 1 and Luis Gutierrez of District 4 have missed more than 10 percent of roll-call votes during their time in office, according  to the latest figures from Govtrack.us, which tracks federal legislation and lawmaker votes in Congress.

Both have been in the U.S. House since 1993, and more than 13,000 votes were taken during that time. Rush missed 1,760 of them, and Gutierrez, 1,548.

Fourteen representatives missed between zero percent and 3 percent of their votes.

U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-District 14, who joined Congress in January 2011, has the best record, missing only four of 1,503 votes during his tenure.

U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-District 13, has been in office since 1999 and has the second-best record, missing only 68 of 9,679 votes.

The median for missed votes among congressional lawmakers is 2.4 percent, according to Govtrack.us.

Some candidates say they miss more mundane and procedural votes, because they are meeting with constituents and interest groups as well as advocating for particular issues and meeting with interest groups — all of which make them better representatives of those who elected them.

But a candidate’s voting record, especially missed votes on key legislation, can be damaging material for an opponent’s campaign ads, said Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

“It really can be political dynamite because it translates so easily into an appeal that the average voter can understand. ‘I’ve got a job. I’m supposed to do things. I’m supposed to be there. I’ve got work days, and I can’t just blow off work,’” he said.

“So when a congressman misses a lot of roll calls, it’s really easy to make the case that the congressman is skipping work and therefore is not paying attention to the basics. And if they don’t have the kind of character to show up for work, then how can you trust them on all of this other stuff. It fits very easily into a more extended narrative of whether they’re really up to the job.”

Rush, who has missed 13 percent of roll-call votes during his tenure, did not respond to a request for an interview Tuesday through his spokeswoman.

Rush missed a large number of votes in 2008 when he was being treated for cancer.

That, Redfield noted, is an example of why voting records alone without context can cause confusion for voters.

Voters can consider the types of legislation the candidates helped pass, the perks the candidates brought home for the district, their leadership roles in sponsoring legislation — all of which help paint a more accurate picture of the job lawmakers are doing, Redfield said.

“If you can make the case that, ‘I make the important votes, and here are the other important things I’m doing,’ that may be sufficient,” he said. “It’s just that without any context, missing votes translates into not doing your job and not taking the job seriously. Without context that’s a very compelling negative argument.”