Illinois schools need new leadership, not new money. Since the late 1940s, state professional educators have told Illinois taxpayers that with bigger school districts and more course offerings, our children will be better prepared for life.
This approach to education is bankrupt. The ultimate big district and large-menu curriculum is in Chicago. Chicago schools have 50 percent dropout rates and graduate thousands who are functionally illiterate. The U.S. secretary of education has called Chicago schools the worst in the nation.
The bureaucrats who have presided over this debacle should be thrown out. The legislature should give us a state board of education and superintendent elected by the people rather than appointees who gain their position by political manipulation. The legislature should tell this new board to mandate literacy, not lunacy.
