How we got here
In my decades as a teacher and champion for public education, I’ve seen a lot of bad math and bad ideas coming from former CEOs and corporate board members appointed by past mayors.
School closings, layoffs, pension “holidays” aka skipped pension payments, toxic debt deals, furloughs, privatization, vouchers, and slush funds. We’re still paying for these decisions—literally! We have debts going back to Daley’s and Emanuel’s school boards.
They say that these are the “hard” decisions. They’re not just hard but almost always end up costing us more in both dollars and human costs. How much are we still paying for the school buildings that are sitting unused and unsafe since they were closed in 2013?
I have never and will never vote for these bad decisions including high-interest loans or a budget that depends on one. That’s because I know that we can make good decisions for our students and families even if they are “hard” for the billionaires.
The money is there. Illinois’ working people produce over a trillion dollars a year in wealth. Our state’s economy has doubled in size over the past 20 years.
But that wealth isn’t shared fairly. Too much ends up in the bank accounts of the super-rich—more now that Trump gave them a tax cut—and not enough goes for public goods like education. The State’s own Evidence-Based Funding formula (EBF) shows Chicago Public Schools are only getting 70% of what their numbers say we need. And, the percentage is going down: last year it was 73% and the year before 78%. Sadly, most school districts across Illinois are in the same boat. We need to protect our students’ needs, especially our students in Black and brown communities that have faced these cuts the hardest. We can’t build Chicago’s future on 70%.
Priorities for the 2026 Budget
Prioritizing parents and students, not Billionaires
Instead of paying taxes to fund our schools, some billionaires like Michael Sacks are pouring their cash into Common Ground Collective, the PAC running attack ads against those of us fighting for fully funded public schools. They’d rather continue to privatize our schools because that lines the pockets of the wealthiest people in Illinois who have avoided paying their fair share. They want to manufacture a crisis around public education that they can “solve” with cuts to classrooms and programs for our kids. Their goal is not to help but to discredit the people who support public education. And they aren’t even doing their research or fact-checking their slop, describing how I voted on a vote that never even happened. The millions that Common Ground Collective are dropping on ads this year are just another face of the billionaire class telling us we don’t deserve to share the wealth.
When my 7 year old granddaughter saw that ad on YouTube the morning we went back-to-school shopping, she was devastated all day that people would say these things about her grandma. Unfortunately, these deceptive ads will only become more common while the billionaires rake in more wealth, and spend more money to defend their wealth. Let’s spend their money on education for our students, and salaries for working families that will put that money back into our neighborhood economies.
Let's stop the lies and fix the math! Chicago and Illinois deserve better! Tax the rich! Fund the schools!