If federal and state statutes drive funding and staffing levels, how is it that CPS can choose to ignore or follow them at will? And why can’t other Illinois districts do the same under SB1? Bev Johns responds.
The first thing to remember is that in all things education there is Chicago and then there is the rest of Illinois.
The same rules rarely apply.
Most of the state’s poor and students of color live in Chicago and Cook County. When bad things happen they usually happen here first and then travel down state.
For years, special education funding to CPS has been in the form of a block grant, with no guarantees of how it will be spent. In recent years the money has been co-mingled with general education funding. There were no guarantees that special education funds would result in direct and dedicated funding for Special Education teachers or at what ratio of teacher to student.
CPS has now told parents it will no longer co-mingle the general education and special education dollars in their block grants. If true, this is a win.
Meanwhile the legislature has sent to the governor a school funding formula, Senate Bill 1, which will send special education dollars to districts as block grants as they have always done to CPS, allowing for If federal and state statutes drive funding and staffing levels, how is it that CPS can choose to ignore or follow them at will? And why can’t other Illinois districts do the same under SB1? Bev Johns responds. – Fred Klonsky:
