Annual poll urges more education funding
IEA’s second annual ‘State of Education Report’ finds only government corruption more pressing
IEA President Kathi Griffin discusses this year’s “State of Education Report.” (Blue Room Stream)
By Ted Cox
Illinoisans may not be sure about where the state is going, but they know that schools, teachers, and support staff need additional funding, according to a new statewide poll released Tuesday.
The Illinois Education Association released its second annual “State of Education Report” Tuesday at a news conference in Springfield. It found that a majority of Illinoisans think the state is “on the wrong track,” although that figure continues to drop since Gov. Pritzker took office just over a year ago.
But two-thirds of the 1,000 state residents polled over a week in November think funding for public schools should be increased, three-quarters think teachers should keep their full pensions, and an overwhelming 81 percent think school support staff such as paraprofessionals should be paid more.
The same 81 percent ranked “having high-quality public schools” as one of their top priorities. Only “cleaning up corruption in state government” ranked higher as a pressing issue, with 85 percent of respondents ranking that as a top priority. Reducing crime, balancing the state budget, lowering taxes, and pension reform all trailed education funding in importance.
“The people of Illinois believe public education is extremely valuable and they want to address the issues facing our schools,” said IEA President Kathi Griffin. “It’s also clear that, once again, the public sees teachers and education support staff as the solution, not the problem. We are hopeful that our lawmakers will, once again, step up to the plate this legislative session to continue helping us invest in our public schools and in our educators.”
When the IEA, the state’s largest educators’ union with 135,000 members, released its first “State of Education Report last April, Griffin said one of the benefits of an annual poll would be that it would also reveal trends. Although 57 percent of respondents this fall said the state was on the wrong track, that was down from 62 percent in a similar poll last March, which was down from 64 percent in a poll taken about the same time by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, which in turn was down from 84 percent the year before when Gov. Bruce Rauner was in office. In other words, there’s been a steady drop in that category since Gov. Pritzker took office, and in the fresh IEA poll 29 percent said the state is “headed in the right track,” up from 26 percent just last March.
The 66 percent of Illinoisans who would like more funding for public schools was actually down from 71 percent last March, but the percentage who feel that funding should be decreased also dropped, from 6 to 5 percent, while 23 percent said funding should stay the same, up from 20 percent. That suggests some taxpayers are content with the evidence-based school funding formula adopted in 2017 and tweaked last year, while again two-thirds believe still more funding is necessary.
The same 66 percent supported the adoption of a $40,000 teacher salary, passed by the General Assembly last year and signed into law by Gov. Pritzker in a bid to address the statewide teacher shortage, with only 30 percent opposed. A 52 percent majority think teachers are still paid too little, down from 57 percent last year, but a stunning 81 percent think paraprofessionals, working with physically, behaviorally, and developmentally challenged students, are paid too little.
“We need career sustainability for all our educators, including our support staff,” Griffin said. “Our paraprofessionals make, on average, $10 an hour.
“Our support staff play a powerful and important role in educating our students,” she added. “We need to do more to attract the best and brightest to these positions, but it’s hard to do that when they can go to places like Aldi, Starbucks, and McDonalds and easily make more money.”
Griffin later added, “When I had a classroom of students, when I had a paraprofessional in the classroom, I would not have been able to do my job without them. In my opinion, they’re the unsung heroes of the education system.”
According to Griffin, a bill pending in the General Assembly would grant paraeducators rights under the Family Medical Leave Act. Some already have those rights under local union contracts, but others fail to qualify for the federal law because they don’t amass enough hours with the summer break.
There was no change at all in the percentage of people saying teachers are entitled to the full pensions they’ve earned, which remained level at 75 percent. A firm majority of 62 percent also advocated returning the minimum age when a teacher can draw on that pension to 60, after it was raised to 67 in 2011.
Some 69 percent backed the ideals behind a troubled federal program that offers forgiveness for student loans after a teacher has worked 10 years in public schools. Griffin said that was important in that another bill in the legislature would grant Illinois residents who attended Illinois universities a reduction on their student loans if they teach in state schools for 10 years. That is critical, she added, in that new teachers entering the profession have on average $40,000 in student loans.
The poll reflected common attitudes toward education nationally, statewide, and locally, with respondents tending to think their local schools are better than the national and state norms. Some 46 percent of respondents gave U.S. schools a C grade, and 41 percent gave Illinois schools a C, as all other grades declined slightly, but 37 percent gave their local schools a B, up from 33 percent a year ago. Some 16 percent gave their local schools an A, up from 14 percent last year, and C grades remained level at 26 percent, while both D and F grades declined.
Teachers are also highly trusted to maintain education standards and determine how schools are run. They placed on top of both categories, with 35 percent of people saying teachers are “best equipped to determine the education standards,” up from 33 percent last year and ahead of the 27 percent backing local school districts, while teachers are the top group “to have a strong voice in how public schools in Illinois are run,” ranked ahead of even parents, and well ahead of administrators, school boards, students, and politicians, in that order.
“The ‘State of Education Report’ tells us we have a long way to go when it comes to fixing the teacher shortage,” Griffin said. “The people of Illinois have spoken. We need to invest in our public schools, give our educators a louder voice at the table, and truly put our students first.”