Education

A child's education should not be dependent on property values.

If we are serious about improving the quality and effectiveness of our education system in Illinois for the long-term we need to:

• 1. Fund our schools and fund them equitably. We have some of the best schools in the country and some of the worst. The reason for that is disparity of funding. The current system directly discriminates against working families by tying school funding to property taxes. We cannot begin to talk about performance pay for teachers in CPS and rural schools when they do not have textbooks and basic supplies for their students. Voucher systems provide benefits for some students in our current educational system, but ultimately they weaken our public education system overall. If the cost of education keeps rising, and the government funds it less and less, then even a government voucher will eventually become worthless to pay for education.

  We need to fix our current funding structure. Passing HB174 would raise funding for schools in low-income neighborhoods to help them compete with more affluent districts, while bringing us closer to meeting our constitutionally mandated funding levels across the state.

• 2. Invest in low-cost and free universal preschool, daycare, and early education programs. As a mental health therapist, I believe we are placing our teachers at a disadvantage by not helping families focus on the healthy development of children. If we want children to perform well in school then we need to provide support to families with children between birth and 3 years old. Children who experience inconsistent care during this critical period of neurological, emotional, and social development will be at a significant disadvantage in our schools and will cost more to educate over the long-term.
• 3. Similarly, we need to invest in trauma-informed teaching models that involve increased mental health and social work involvement as well as integration of non-violence program curricula into our elementary school system.