Send your legislator an SOS!
February 11, 2010 by IEA Communications
The Illinois budget crisis has morphed into a school crisis and human services crisis. See this report citing financially strapped districts statewide or check this Blog for a look at the politics of the budget.
It is imperative that the Illinois raise revenues to get the state out of debt and back on track, Failing to raise revenue means school employees being laid off, school programs and activities eliminated, bigger class sizes and much more.
In short, we are facing a disaster.
Send your state senator and representative an email telling them to support a revenue increase. Â Gov. Quinn’s one percent tax increase for education is a start, but the real answer for Illinois is comprehensive tax reform like that found in HB 174. Â Tell your lawmakers they must Save Our Schools and Save Our State.
We must put the pressure on now…and keep it on. This is an election year and we need to keep reminding our legislators that they have a duty: to do their jobs…so we can do ours!
I have been discouraged to hear my Democrat Representative starting to sound like my Republican Senator when it comes to increasing the income tax. But I’m going to keep at ‘em and encourage my Region members to do the same.
I like the SOS logo above. We should get t-shirts of that and sell’em at the RA
We are in the process of getting some SOS promotional materials produced. Stay tuned!
The pressures and expectations have never been greater on teachers than they are at present. Society and our economy are under seige-our schools are a microcasm reflecting these fractures. Teachers need more support-not less!!
“We the willing, led by the unknowing, have been doing so much with so little for so long that we are now expected to do anything with nothing forever?”
This quote seems appropriate. The forecast is gloomy. Likely we will lose excellent untenured/tenured teachers. Our class sizes will increase! Valuable programs will cease!! Yet, somehow schools are still expected to do exponentually more.
I was looking but couldn’t find where the raised revenues are coming from? Any info would be great, thanks!
Because the state cannot meet its current needs with current revenues, IEA has long favored increasing revenue through an increase in the state income tax. IEA supported and continues to support HB 174 but the organization is open to other proposals that meet the guidelines of the Invest in Excellence/SOS campaign. I hope this is helpful.
Schools are the wrong area in which to reduce spending. Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders.
We have heard the same information about education funding from previous governors. Remember the Lottery in Illinois was set up to help fund education? All that “spin doctoring” did was replace state funding with funds from the Lottery so the politicians could utilize the dollars for their “pet” projects…it was a smoke screen set up to fool the general public into believing that the State’s schools were in essence receiving additional funds! How is the State going to be held accountable this time to be certain that the additional one percent income tax is actually going to education…this part of the puzzle needs to be addressed!!! I’ll be waiting to hear the Governor’s response to this question!
Please save our schools! If the 1% sales tax increase will allow every school and employee to continue to receive necessary funds, then let’s do it!
S.O.S Please pass HB174.
Hi. The congressmen are saying they don’t hear from us, but I’m pretty sure that’s a cop out – Puts the blame on us for not saying what we want. I’m offended by that. I know people try to communicate – unfortunately, I don’t think our elected officials listen.