An Education Governor

A product of the Illinois public education system, Jim Edgar knew the health of the economy and the ability of families to turn dreams into reality depended on the strength of the state’s educational system.

During his 1990 campaign, Edgar took a political risk by announcing he would fight to make permanent the temporary income tax surcharge for education.

He fulfilled that commitment. In his second term, the Governor pushed for comprehensive reform. He fought for and attained passage of historic legislation that established a foundation level of state-supported, minimum per pupil spending, thereby ensuring that children in the state’s poorest districts have an equal chance at a quality education. During his tenure the state’s per pupil spending for K thru 12th grade jumped from $2,502 in 1990 to $4,225 in 1999.

In 1995, Edgar dared to overhaul the Chicago public school system. The city’s public education system was transformed from an urban failure to a model for metropolitan schools throughout the nation.

In addition, Edgar was the first Governor to implement statewide accountability measures including establishing the state watch list in 1991 and the Illinois Goal Assessment Program in 1996. And in 1997, the Governor passed reforms for stricter tenure and certification requirements for teachers.

In higher education, Illinois rose to fourth in the nation in supporting public universities. Governor Edgar overhauled the university governance system and as tuition costs rose, Edgar consistently increased scholarship grants and signed legislation creating the tax-exempt, prepaid tuition program, a first in the nation.

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Increase in per-pupil spending from 1990 to 1999

Increase in funding for public schools

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High school graduation rate (highest level in 10 years)

Improving the state’s education system was one of the Governor’s highest priorities. Here, in 1991, Edgar stressed to East St. Louis High School students and faculty the importance of education in developing a skilled workforce.

From Aug. 8, 1989, the day Edgar announced his candidacy for governor in his hometown of Charleston, there was never a doubt about the value he placed on education preparing today’s children for tomorrow.

“We can assure that Illinois has an education system that is second to none in our nation, an education system that will help us attract and keep good jobs, an education system that will encourage our children to stay in Illinois and raise our grandchildren here, a system that will assure that Illinois is a state prosperous enough to meet the needs of the truly needy and to bring them into the mainstream of our society,” he said then.

Edgar knew Illinois’ future, the health of the economy, the quality of life in cities and towns, and the ability of families to turn dreams into reality — depended on the strength of the state’s educational system, from the earliest basics  in elementary school through advanced training in the state’s community colleges and world-class universities.

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“A child, Abraham Lincoln once suggested, is someone we teach to take our place once we are gone from this earth, someone who will learn from our mistakes and someone who builds on our successes,” Edgar told students at the Lincoln Academy Student Laureates ceremony in 1993. “In the 175 years since this great state became a part of the Union, the opportunity for a quality education has become the greatest gift we can give our children and the greatest legacy that we in government can leave to the generations that follow.”

Edgar set out to ensure that legacy and championed a wide range of creative, result-oriented, reform-minded initiatives to improve the learning process for all Illinois schoolchildren.

Education was his highest priority. He learned quickly, however, that it would take all the resources and powers of persuasion that a governor can summon to make it the state’s top priority.

Edgar’s hard-fought education successes eventually proved to be many, but the capstone to his education reforms was landmark legislation in 1997 that guarantees every elementary and secondary student is afforded the necessary dollars to achieve a quality education, not matter where he or she lives. The Governor proposed, fought for and attained passage of the historic legislation that established a foundation level of state supported, minimum per-pupil spending to improve equity in state funding for public schools, thereby ensuring that children in the state’s poorest districts have an equal chance at a quality education.

“It’s great to see Illinois’ most popular politician throw the full force of that popularity behind school funding reform,” the Peoria Journal Star said in a 1997 editorial. “More so than any other issue, this one will mark his place in the state’s history books.”

Another hard-won school reform, which few had thought possible, was Edgar’s daring overhaul of the Chicago public school system in 1995. The city’s public education system was transformed from a symbol of urban failure in education to a model for metropolitan schools throughout the nation.

One of Edgar’s proudest accomplishments was Project Success, a new initiative that brought state human services programs to the schoolhouse to help at-risk children with health and social problems that could impair their learning. Other reforms included establishing new academic standards for student performance, instituting initiatives to improve teacher skills, creating charter schools as laboratories for educational improvement and relieving schools from unnecessary and costly state mandates.

To maintain a competitive advantage in an ever-changing world, the Governor insisted the educational system have access to 21st century technology and facilities. Efforts were launched to make every school district in Illinois Internet-accessible, to expand computer technology and to develop a statewide telecommunications network linking colleges with local schools and businesses.

In the critical area of bricks and mortar, a $3 billion building program Illinois’ first such plan for elementary and secondary schools in more than 20 years started in 1998. In addition, Edgar allocated more than $650 million to the state’s community college and university campuses for new buildings and renovations.

Year in and year out, Edgar ear-marked the lion’s share of any revenue growth for education. Despite severe budget constraints, the Governor increased funding for the state’s public elementary and secondary schools and higher education by $2.4 billion. Per pupil spending for kindergarten through 12th grade jumped from $2,502 in fiscal 1990 to $4,225 in fiscal 1999.

In higher education, Illinois rose to fourth among all states in appropriated state funds. And for five straight years, Edgar fully funded the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s was budget request. As tuition costs rose, Edgar acted to help college students and their families pay for college years. He consistently supported increased scholarship grants and he signed legislation creating a tax-exempt, prepaid tuition program.

Edgar’s spending on the state’s community colleges and universities also was predicated on reforms. Before any additional money was approved, the Governor sought, and received, the most sweeping overhaul of university governance in more than three decades. He also challenged colleges to offer enough undergraduate courses so students could graduate in four years and worked to assure community college course work would be easily transferable to the university level.

In a 1997 article recounting the Governor’s many education accomplishments, Chicago Tribune columnist R. Bruce Dold wrote, “It’s time to give Edgar credit for what he has done for education not just this week, but over the years. Jim Edgar did all right by schools.”

Edgar took his campaign for fairer education funding throughout the state in 1997, visiting schools, meeting with community groups and speaking to statewide organizations at the Illinois Education Association.

Time and again, Edgar put his political and governmental career on the line for consistent and equitable school funding.

In his first campaign for governor, Edgar took the unpopular side of the income tax surcharge for education issue, a focal point of the 1990 election. For Edgar, this posed huge political risks. He campaigned on the promise to keep the higher income tax for education, while his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Neil Hartigan, played to anti-tax proponents by saying he would veto any attempt to continue the 20 percent surcharge, due to expire in 1991.

While editorials, like one in the Chicago Tribune, noted “what [Edgar] said was honest and responsible, truly a remarkable way to start a campaign,” political strategists and other politicians questioned the wisdom of this politically risky stance. Voters, however, embraced Edgar’s honesty on taxes and agreed that education funding must be maintained.

As he explained during a September 1990 gubernatorial debate, “[The next governor] must have the vision and discipline to look beyond the next election to the next decade and even to the next century. He must have the conscience and courage to place principle above political expediency. That is what leadership is all about.”

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After his election, Edgar worked to convince the Democratic-controlled legislature that the temporary surcharge, passed in 1989 to provide additional support to public schools and local governments, should be made permanent. Lawmakers steadfastly balked at the idea. Edgar refused to back away from his commitment to education. The legislative impasse stretched into a record 19 days of overtime session before the new Governor finally prevailed. The portion of the surcharge dedicated to education became permanent, and during the Edgar years it provided $4 billion for elementary, secondary and higher education.

Despite this success, Edgar remained troubled by the fact that 700,000 of the state’s 2 million public school students were not supported by an adequate level of funding. While property-rich districts could lavish $15,000 a year on each student, property-poor districts spent less than $3,000, due to the state’s reliance on local property taxes for elementary and secondary education. Nearly 70 cents of every educational dollar came from property taxes while state support dwindled.

During the 1994 campaign, Edgar’s Democratic opponent, Dawn Clark Netsch, floated a plan that called for raising the income tax to increase education spending and to provide limited property tax relief. Edgar was no stranger to the idea of such a swap. Reforming undue and unfair reliance on the property tax was something he had championed as a legislator and something he again stressed in 1989 when he announced his candidacy for governor.

Edgar, however, was opposed to wholesale change without structural education reform and increased accountability.

In 1995, the Governor named Stanley O. Ikenberry, president emeritus of the University of Illinois, to chair a blue-ribbon, 18-member commission charged with recommending a plan to reform education funding. Its intended goal was equity and fairness.

On March 21, 1996, the Governor’s Commission on Education Funding released its landmark report. It proposed a binding referendum to require state government to pay its fair share of education. The commission put that figure at $4,225 per student. The commission proffered two other common-sense mandates: a guarantee of local property tax relief and insistence that schools be held accountable for the quality of education they provide.

The commission’s plan would have provided $1.5 billion in property tax relief and $400 million in new state education money, chiefly to raise spending for the schoolchildren in the 60 percent of Illinois school districts receiving less than the proposed minimum foundation level. The commission estimated the state would need $1.9 billion in new revenue, with at least some coming from a hike in the state income tax. Those estimates would not appear in the proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution, but would nudge lawmakers to determine the basic level of funding and what would represent substantial tax relief.

Edgar embraced the idea, finding it far superior to one narrowly rejected by voters four years earlier and to Netsch’s plan. The Governor had not supported the 1992 ballot proposal, noting it did not guarantee property tax relief, required no accountability and caused even its proponents to disagree on what it meant. Edgar saw the Ikenberry plan as squarely on target.

The day after the commission unveiled its blueprint, Edgar addressed a joint session of the General Assembly. “The system isn’t equitable. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right,” the Governor told lawmakers gathered in the Illinois House. He urged them to vote to place the amendment on the fall ballot and let citizens decide. “It cannot go forward without the consent of the people,” Edgar said. “And that is how it should be on an issue of this magnitude. But the people cannot speak unless you let them. And so today I ask of you: Let the people speak.”

His plea to the legislature, however, went unheeded.

Edgar vowed to continue the fight to reform financing for Illinois’ public schools and it emerged as a key issue in many legislative district elections that fall. Both Republican and Democratic candidates declared that 1997 would be the year for reform.

Edgar took lawmakers at their word. January 1997 State of the State address, he made it clear equity in education funding was back at the top of his agenda. He declared that a modest increase in the income tax was the fairest way to raise the money needed, but said he was open to other possibilities. The Governor stepped up the pressure for equitable school funding and property tax relief. He embarked on a series of campaign-style trips across the state to visit schools, meet with concerned citizens and draw attention to their problems. He listened while students told of their outdated textbooks and computers, scaled-back course offerings and reduced extracurricular activities. He met teachers earning below-average salaries who used their own money to buy classroom supplies. He spoke with community and parent groups who had exhausted their means to provide basic school supplies.

The Governor threw his own considerable personal and political capital into the effort. He followed up on his school visits with three weeks of television advertising, paid for with $400,000 from his own campaign fund and other sources. Addressing viewers, he underscored the unfairness of current funding and urged voters to demand reform from their legislators. He also lobbied business and industry leaders.

After months of deliberations between the Governor and legislative leaders, a school funding package finally took shape. A bill, including substantial changes in school funding as well as reforms in teacher tenure, certification and accountability, passed the House. But Senate leadership refused to call it for a vote. “School kids have been forsaken,” Edgar lamented. “So have homeowners. Reforms to help assure that we have qualified teachers in the classroom have been stymied. A golden opportunity has been missed, and it’s truly a shame.”

But he would not relent.

Edgar spent the summer seeking public support to pressure legislators to approve his reform plan. By the fall veto session, Edgar had a new package that achieved his top priority – establishing a foundation level to guarantee all schoolchildren receive a quality education no matter where they live. It called for higher taxes on cigarettes, phone calls and the most profitable riverboat casinos, and higher penalties for late tax filers. The plan would raise $485 million, but included no property tax relief. This time the plan passed the Senate, but fell four votes shy in the House. Even in defeat, however, Edgar could see the finish line and was not about to give up so close to his goal.

Just days after the school funding measure failed to pass in veto session, Edgar called lawmakers back for a special session to try once again. The Governor pressured Chicago House members who voted against the plan even though it provided substantial new money for the city’s public schools. Edgar and others around the state mobilized a lobbying effort that converted a dozen House Democrats, all Chicagoans, from opposition to support for the plan. The bill passed with votes to spare.

Finally able to claim victory after nearly three years and two contentious legislative sessions, Edgar praised school funding reform as the “most significant piece of legislation dealing with education” he had seen in 30 years of public service. Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan applauded Edgar’s lengthy quest to gain legislative approval. “The Governor deserves the bulk of the credit because he is the one who initiated the proposal; he is the one who provided the persistence and perseverance to get it through,” Madigan said.

The final package established a basic level of $4,225 for each school-child, as recommended by the Ikenberry Commission, beginning with the 1998-99 school year. It provided nearly $1.5 billion in state funds for local school construction and other capital improvements. The state money for school construction and improvements would generate another $1.5 billion in local matching funds to provide a total of $3 billion for the first comprehensive building program for Illinois schools in more than two decades. It included significant reforms such as improvements to certification and tenure to ensure teachers are well-qualified and highly skilled. The law also provided a precedent-setting continuing appropriation and guarantees per-pupil spending will rise to $4,325 in 2000 and to $4,425 in 2001.

“At long last, we will be able to provide the funding to assure quality education opportunities for the nearly 700,000 children in the state’s poorest school districts,” Edgar said in signing ceremonies carried out in schools across the state on Dec. 4, 1997. “This historic legislation finally gives all Illinois schoolchildren what they richly deserve – the guarantee of a quality education, no matter where they live.”

Largely as a result of the Governor’s education reform legislation, Edgar’s fiscal 1999 budget included $570 million in new funding for elementary and secondary education, the largest one-year increase in Illinois history. This raised total spending to $5.2 billion from $3.3 billion, an increase of nearly 55 percent from when Edgar became Governor in 1991.

Unfortunately, the final mix of the 1997 legislation did not include property tax relief, but Edgar said the key issue all along was to finally provide a foundation level of funding that all Illinois schoolchildren deserve.

Edgar, however, did not give up on property tax reform. In his 1998 State of the State address, he announced a blue-ribbon Commission on Property Tax Reform to develop recommendations that could lead to a tax swap, less reliance on local property taxes for school funding and greater reliance on fairer state taxes, like the income tax.

Edgar and Kustra are greeted by fourth grade students at Joseph E. Gary School on Chicago’s west side in 1991 where the Governor signed a law to clarify the authority and responsibilities of the Local School Councils in Chicago.

In November 1987, then U.S. Education Secretary William J. Bennett told reporters that Chicago’s high dropout rate and low scores on college entrance exams made it the nation’s worst urban school system. A decade later, President Bill Clinton cited the turnaround by Chicago’s public schools as a national model for other troubled school systems.

“I want what is happening in Chicago to happen all over America,” Clinton said. “What is working in Chicago must blow like a wind of change into every school in every city in America.”

What led to this remarkable transformation?

It was legislation initiated by Governor Edgar and passed in 1995 by the Republican-controlled General Assembly. This innovative approach brought a business- management style to operations at the country’s third largest public school system, which was desperately in need of a sweeping overhaul. Edgar’s plan put in place a new, streamlined management team appointed by the city’s mayor and a new structure with more tools, greater flexibility and increased accountability for the education of 425,000 schoolchildren in Chicago.In November 1987, then U.S. Education Secretary William J. Bennett told reporters that Chicago’s high dropout rate and low scores on college entrance exams made it the nation’s worst urban school system. A decade later, President Bill Clinton cited the turnaround by Chicago’s public schools as a national model for other troubled school systems.

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After his election, Edgar worked to convince the Democratic-controlled legislature that the temporary surcharge, passed in 1989 to provide additional support to public schools and local governments, should be made permanent. Lawmakers steadfastly balked at the idea. Edgar refused to back away from his commitment to education. The legislative impasse stretched into a record 19 days of overtime session before the new Governor finally prevailed. The portion of the surcharge dedicated to education became permanent, and during the Edgar years it provided $4 billion for elementary, secondary and higher education.

Despite this success, Edgar remained troubled by the fact that 700,000 of the state’s 2 million public school students were not supported by an adequate level of funding. While property-rich districts could lavish $15,000 a year on each student, property-poor districts spent less than $3,000, due to the state’s reliance on local property taxes for elementary and secondary education. Nearly 70 cents of every educational dollar came from property taxes while state support dwindled.

During the 1994 campaign, Edgar’s Democratic opponent, Dawn Clark Netsch, floated a plan that called for raising the income tax to increase education spending and to provide limited property tax relief. Edgar was no stranger to the idea of such a swap. Reforming undue and unfair reliance on the property tax was something he had championed as a legislator and something he again stressed in 1989 when he announced his candidacy for governor.

Edgar, however, was opposed to wholesale change without structural education reform and increased accountability.

In 1995, the Governor named Stanley O. Ikenberry, president emeritus of the University of Illinois, to chair a blue-ribbon, 18-member commission charged with recommending a plan to reform education funding. Its intended goal was equity and fairness.

On March 21, 1996, the Governor’s Commission on Education Funding released its landmark report. It proposed a binding referendum to require state government to pay its fair share of education. The commission put that figure at $4,225 per student. The commission proffered two other common-sense mandates: a guarantee of local property tax relief and insistence that schools be held accountable for the quality of education they provide.

The commission’s plan would have provided $1.5 billion in property tax relief and $400 million in new state education money, chiefly to raise spending for the schoolchildren in the 60 percent of Illinois school districts receiving less than the proposed minimum foundation level. The commission estimated the state would need $1.9 billion in new revenue, with at least some coming from a hike in the state income tax. Those estimates would not appear in the proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution, but would nudge lawmakers to determine the basic level of funding and what would represent substantial tax relief.

Edgar embraced the idea, finding it far superior to one narrowly rejected by voters four years earlier and to Netsch’s plan. The Governor had not supported the 1992 ballot proposal, noting it did not guarantee property tax relief, required no accountability and caused even its proponents to disagree on what it meant. Edgar saw the Ikenberry plan as squarely on target.

The day after the commission unveiled its blueprint, Edgar addressed a joint session of the General Assembly. “The system isn’t equitable. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right,” the Governor told lawmakers gathered in the Illinois House. He urged them to vote to place the amendment on the fall ballot and let citizens decide. “It cannot go forward without the consent of the people,” Edgar said. “And that is how it should be on an issue of this magnitude. But the people cannot speak unless you let them. And so today I ask of you: Let the people speak.”

His plea to the legislature, however, went unheeded.

Edgar vowed to continue the fight to reform financing for Illinois’ public schools and it emerged as a key issue in many legislative district elections that fall. Both Republican and Democratic candidates declared that 1997 would be the year for reform.

Edgar took lawmakers at their word. January 1997 State of the State address, he made it clear equity in education funding was back at the top of his agenda. He declared that a modest increase in the income tax was the fairest way to raise the money needed, but said he was open to other possibilities. The Governor stepped up the pressure for equitable school funding and property tax relief. He embarked on a series of campaign-style trips across the state to visit schools, meet with concerned citizens and draw attention to their problems. He listened while students told of their outdated textbooks and computers, scaled-back course offerings and reduced extracurricular activities. He met teachers earning below-average salaries who used their own money to buy classroom supplies. He spoke with community and parent groups who had exhausted their means to provide basic school supplies.

The Governor threw his own considerable personal and political capital into the effort. He followed up on his school visits with three weeks of television advertising, paid for with $400,000 from his own campaign fund and other sources. Addressing viewers, he underscored the unfairness of current funding and urged voters to demand reform from their legislators. He also lobbied business and industry leaders.

After months of deliberations between the Governor and legislative leaders, a school funding package finally took shape. A bill, including substantial changes in school funding as well as reforms in teacher tenure, certification and accountability, passed the House. But Senate leader- ship refused to call it for a vote. “School kids have been forsaken,” Edgar lamented. “So have homeowners. Reforms to help assure that we have qualified teachers in the classroom have been stymied. A golden opportunity has been missed, and it’s truly a shame.”

But he would not relent.

Edgar spent the summer seeking public support to pressure legislators to approve his reform plan. By the fall veto session, Edgar had a new package that achieved his top priority — establishing a foundation level to guarantee all schoolchildren receive a quality education no matter where they live. It called for higher taxes on cigarettes, phone calls and the most profitable riverboat casinos, and higher penalties for late tax filers. The plan would raise $485 million, but included no property tax relief. This time the plan passed the Senate, but fell four votes shy in the House. Even in defeat, however, Edgar could see the finish line and was not about to give up so close to his goal.

Just days after the school funding measure failed to pass in veto session, Edgar called lawmakers back for a special session to try once again. The Governor pressured Chicago House members who voted against the plan even though it provided substantial new money for the city’s public schools. Edgar and others around the state mobilized a lobbying effort that converted a dozen House Democrats, all Chicagoans, from opposition to support for the plan. The bill passed with votes to spare.

Finally able to claim victory after nearly three years and two contentious legislative sessions, Edgar praised school funding reform as the “most significant piece of legislation dealing with education” he had seen in 30 years of public service. Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan applauded Edgar’s lengthy quest to gain legislative approval. “The Governor deserves the bulk of the credit because he is the one who initiated the proposal; he is the one who provided the persistence and perseverance to get it through,” Madigan said.

The final package established a basic level of $4,225 for each school-child, as recommended by the Ikenberry Commission, beginning with the 1998-99 school year. It provided nearly $1.5 billion in state funds for local school construction and other capital improvements. The state money for school construction and improvements would generate another $1.5 billion in local matching funds to provide a total of $3 billion for the first comprehensive building program for Illinois schools in more than two decades. It included significant reforms such as improvements to certification and tenure to ensure teachers are well-qualified and highly skilled. The law also provided a precedent-setting continuing appropriation and guarantees per-pupil spending will rise to $4,325 in 2000 and to $4,425 in 2001.

“At long last, we will be able to provide the funding to assure quality education opportunities for the nearly 700,000 children in the state’s poorest school districts,” Edgar said in signing ceremonies carried out in schools across the state on Dec. 4, 1997. “This historic legislation finally gives all Illinois schoolchildren what they richly deserve — the guarantee of a quality education, no matter where they live.”

Largely as a result of the Governor’s education reform legislation, Edgar’s fiscal 1999 budget included $570 million in new funding for elementary and secondary education, the largest one-year increase in Illinois history. This raised total spending to $5.2 billion from $3.3 billion, an increase of nearly 55 percent from when Edgar became Governor in 1991.

Unfortunately, the final mix of the 1997 legislation did not include property tax relief, but Edgar said the key issue all along was to finally provide a foundation level of funding that all Illinois schoolchildren deserve.

Edgar, however, did not give up on property tax reform. In his 1998 State of the State address, he announced a blue-ribbon Commission on Property Tax Reform to develop recommendations that could lead to a tax swap, less reliance on local property taxes for school funding and greater reliance on fairer state taxes, like the income tax.

Bob Morrison, chairman and CEO of Kraft Foods, an early corporate sponsor of Project Success, and Edgar are presented with a straight A+ report card from a Chicago student in 1995.

Even with the best teachers in the best schools, a child who is hungry, homeless, sick or abused will have a tough time learning in the classroom. In his 1991 State of the State address, Edgar called for pilot programs to make schools a focal point for state and community human services that address health and family problems that hinder a child’s potential.

At Edgar’s direction, Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra assumed the task of developing a model plan so communities could pool talents, energies and resources to improve the well- being of children and families, thereby freeing kids to learn. Kustra convened teachers, parents, businesses, school administrators, community-based service providers, private social service agencies, advocacy organizations, directors of the state’s social service agencies and the State Board of Education. The result was Project Success, a program that quickly became one of Edgar’s favorites and later served as an inspiration for sweeping changes in how the state’s human services are delivered.

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Project Success started in 1992 with pilot projects in six communities from inner-city Chicago to rural southern Illinois. It challenged community leaders, educators, parents, and state and local social service agencies to work together to identify problems facing school kids. The model was expanded in 1998 to 840 schools statewide and Edgar provided funding to make Project Success available by 1999 to all of the state’s 3,200 elementary and middle schools.

In each community, elementary schools serve as the access point for identifying children who need help. Then a local governing board makes sure these children get the assistance and services they need. To do that, the board has complete access to the state’s human service providers. The board also develops cooperative systems to help families in six key areas: preventive and primary health care; proper nutrition and nutrition education; preventive and rehabilitative mental health services; substance abuse prevention, intervention and treatment; services to protect children and to promote the health and stability of families; and social activities to enhance positive family interaction.

Communities must demonstrate that 20 percent of their students served are economically disadvantaged to qualify for a one-time start-up grant of up to $15,000 to make the plan work.

A fundamental strength of Project Success is its individualized application within each community. Just as each child and family present unique strengths and needs, so, too, do individual collaborative models. Programs vary from district to district, depending on the students’ needs. Local governing boards of parents, teachers, and service provider and business leaders determine these needs and how best to meet them.

“We launched one of our most worthwhile programs, Project Success, because we realized that many schoolchildren and the schools themselves needed help,” Edgar said in his 1998 State of the State address. “We got parents involved. We got neighborhoods and communities involved. We established far better coordination among state and community service agencies. In neighborhoods and communities throughout Illinois, we established a network of effectively delivered services to which educators and parents could turn and get results quickly.”

Participating schools show increases in attendance; higher levels of immunizations, physicals and dental examinations; greater parental involvement in the schools; and fewer behavioral problems. Project Success participants achieve these results in a variety of ways. In Cook County’s North Lawndale neighborhood, volunteers patrol the playground to ensure children get to and from school safely. In Springfield, Dubois Elementary School provides baby-sitting and rides to parent-child activities, an open computer lab for parents and students, and in-school immunizations and dental services. In Creal Springs, a small community deep in southern Illinois, a computer lab in a local nursing home allows an intergenerational mix of parents, children and residents to explore computer use, reading skills and math instruction.

“School by school, we are beginning to respond to all the needs children have today, and we are beginning to reach those thousands of students who are teetering between the edge of success and the brink of failure,” Edgar said in a 1993 address to the Education Commission of the States, which he chaired from 1993 to 1994.

Linda Rowden of Decatur Project Success wrote to the Governor: “Project Success was very appropriately named, for it truly has provided success and hope for our children, our families and our community. Your vision, leadership and support have been instrumental in making it all a reality, and for that we are very grateful.”

Edgar supported programs to ensure students were ready to learn when they entered school. During his administration, the Governor nearly tripled the number of children served by early childhood education.

In 1985, the state began giving grants to school districts to initiate preschool programs for 3-and 4-year-olds identified to be at risk of academic failure without intervention. Edgar firmly believed that every boy and girl entering school must learn to their potential. Toward this end, early childhood programs claimed funding priority.

During Edgar’s administration, spending for early childhood education programs increased by more than 144 percent to a record $154 million in fiscal 1999. The number of children served by these efforts nearly tripled, to more than 50,000.

“No child should enter school unprepared to learn, doomed to an educational lifetime of trailing his or her classmates, or failing because he or she was not ready to learn,” Edgar said in his 1991 State of the State address. “If that child fails, we have failed.”

Edgar demanded schools be held accountable for the performance of their students to guarantee state and local education dollars were being spent wisely. The Governor often visited schools throughout the state, including this classroom in Belleville in 1991 where he took questions from students at Abraham Lincoln Grade School.

When Edgar took office in 1991, he wanted a means to gauge how the state’s elementary and secondary schools were performing. At the Governor’s urging, business leaders, educators and legislators crafted an accountability law that created a pioneering school accreditation process to assure state and local education dollars were being used to their best advantage.

“The future of this state is being determined right now in our classrooms,” Edgar said in signing the law on Sept. 17, 1991. “We must do our utmost to provide our schools with the resources they need, but we also must demand that they produce the right results. Making schools more accountable is crucial to meeting the most important challenge we face as a state — assuring we continue to have the skilled, well-qualified workforce that has made Illinois the economic hub of the nation’s heart-land.”

School test results are evaluated and attendance and graduation rates monitored. Those schools with students performing at high levels or substantially improved levels receive state recognition and less oversight. However, schools that fail to meet minimum standards go on an academic watch list. The state may ultimately take control of a school or school district that chronically lags below standards.

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To get off the watch list, specific steps are required. Those who remain on it for two years get more state oversight. If a school system remains four years on the watch list, the State Board of Education is empowered to remove local school board members and to appoint an authority to operate the schools. Although a strong proponent of local control, Edgar said the state cannot sit idle and abide failure if a local school district does not meet standards over a period of years.

In 1996, additional classroom performance initiatives were adopted. “Quality First” legislation requires students who do not pass competency tests in reading, writing and math after third and fifth grades to enroll in a remedial program. High school seniors, beginning with the 1999-2000 school year, must be evaluated for reading, writing, math, science and social science skills. Those who fail the Prairie State Achievement test will have a second chance before the results become a part of their permanent academic records.

The law also required the State Board of Education to establish standards for measuring whether educators and students are achieving the right classroom results. Once drafted, these standards went out for public comment and elicited more than 10,000 responses. The Illinois Academic Standards were adopted by the board in July 1997, and Illinois Goal Assessment Plan (IGAP) tests were revised to gauge whether classroom instruction ensures students are well-prepared for the 21st century.

From 1994 until 1996, the Governor served as a member of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, which sought to improve the status and quality of teaching by calling for dramatic changes in preparation, support and recruitment of teachers. Edgar took lessons learned with the commission and added them to the 1997 school funding reform legislation. These included stricter tenure and certification requirements that call for teachers to prove they are qualified to remain at the front of a classroom.

Heeding complaints of school administrators and school boards deriding burdensome state red tape, Edgar also proposed and in 1995 signed a mandate waiver law. It allows schools to seek waivers from state laws, rules and regulations that impede their ability to provide the best possible educational programs for their students. Since the law’s passage, more than 400 waivers have been approved.

Finding a better way to educate children without state interference also underpinned Edgar’s idea for largely rules-free charter schools to be “greenhouses for further education reform.” The Governor’s plan, approved in 1996, allows for 45 charter schools to be evenly divided among three regions of the state Chicago, the suburbs and downstate. After review and recommendation at the local level, the State Board of Education can grant charters for up to five years. The state requires the schools to meet high academic standards, but gives them almost total freedom to achieve the standards. Unlike a traditional public school, a charter school “charts” its own destiny, defines its educational environment and is held accountable for the results. By the start of the 1998-99 school year, 14 charter schools had been approved and were open to students.

“Charter schools will not be bound by timeworn practices of the past,” Edgar said in signing the bill. “They can be bold. They will be on the cutting edge of helping our young people meet the challenges of today, tomorrow and the next century.”

Recognizing that some students are not interested in a college education, Edgar assured that high school programs were available to prepare them for the workforce. While many jobs in the future may not need a college degree, the Governor said jobs offering growth and advancement will require technical and analytical skills well beyond those required for high school graduation. Initiatives to combine classroom education with hands-on learning in the workplace were started. The Jobs for Illinois Graduates program provides special one-on-one counseling to high school seniors who might fail without it.

To address the problem of high school dropouts, the Governor instituted the Lincoln Challenge Program at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul. Through the program, National Guard troops provide disadvantaged dropouts with a chance to earn a general equivalency diploma and to learn a different lifestyle from that on the streets.

One member of the first graduating class in 1994 was a 17-year-old from Chicago. He had belonged to a gang. He had been caught with a gun and a stolen car. After spending several weeks in the program, the boy wrote to his father: “Two years ago you asked me did I care if I died? I said I don’t know. But now I feel I have something to live for.”

“It is far better – far better – to have the Guard members teaching self-discipline, fitness, family responsibility and other life skills than to have the Guard restoring order to neighborhoods torn asunder by civil war,” Edgar said in his 1993 State of the State address.

By 1998, more than 2,800 youths had received their diplomas through the Lincoln Challenge Program, and more than 1,000 of them had gone on to college and vocational schools.

Edgar realized classrooms could benefit from computer technology. He successfully pushed for funding to ensure that every school district in the state will have high-speed access to the Internet by 2000.

To ensure schools kept pace with new technology, Edgar was an enthusiastic supporter of computers and the Internet in schools. In 1993, he announced an initiative to expand computer technology from kindergarten through 12th grade. By fiscal 1999, more than $140

million had been spent to help schools integrate technology and to ensure that all 903 Illinois school districts would be connected to the Internet by year 2000.

The Governor also used the latest in telecommunications for the “LincOn Network,” which connects students throughout the state with expert instruction located miles away from them. “In some schools, students in kindergarten are already learning to use the mouse as well as the crayon,” Edgar said. “And when we fulfill our goal of having every school in Illinois on-line, the Internet will replace the encyclopedia.” In 1997, the Governor signed legislation extending the network to private schools if they pay an access fee.

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In 1997, Edgar started “MuseumLink” to provide state-specific information on art, culture and nature from the Illinois State Museum to schools in underserved rural and urban areas. Access also is available to the public at various state museum sites and visitor centers.

The Governor in 1998 proposed and the legislature approved an initiative that encouraged Illinois’ public museums and schools to develop innovative education partnerships and to provide more creative and effective learning opportunities for students. The plan set aside $5 million annually for museums to create partnerships and $50 million in capital funding to help museums create new exhibits, expand facilities and provide new and better student educational offerings. Local and private matching funds were expected to bring the total money available for the project to $150 million over five years.

But just as out-of-date technology from the past can- not be used to connect schools, Edgar knew 21st century teaching methods must be used to implement the latest technology. To formulate a long-range plan for hardware. and infrastructure needs and to equip educators with the training to integrate new technology in the classroom, Edgar convened the Illinois Summit on Education Technology in 1994.

Out of this summit and others came a blueprint to improve student learning, to expand statewide connectivity and to promote economic development. Seven technology hubs were established and trained 25,000 educators on how to use technology and telecommunications in the classroom. Also, 72 economically disadvantaged schools launched community-based technology plans. In classrooms across the state, schools changed their approach to learning and the Internet became their primary tool. Grants for the nationally recognized Museum in the Classroom project enabled more than 7,000 students and 258 classrooms to link to eight Illinois museums.

Edgar signed legislation in 1995 that he had proposed to reform higher education governance and return control and accountability to each of the state’s public universities.

It probably is not surprising that Edgar has a strong affinity for the state’s higher education system. He is the first elected Illinois governor to graduate from a state public university (Eastern Illinois University in 1968). His wife, Brenda, is a fellow alumnus (1998), as are his two brothers. His mother was an EIU student before leaving to get married. Edgar grew up in Charleston just blocks from EIU’s campus.

Upon taking office, the Governor set out to make the state’s community colleges and universities second to none in the nation. Beginning in 1995, Edgar did what no other governor had done — fully fund the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s spending request. He repeated this feat for five straight years.

During Edgar’s tenure as governor, state funding for community colleges and universities grew by $567 million to more than $2.25 billion, ranking Illinois fourth among the 50 states in state funds allocated for higher education. In the past decade, Illinois higher education spending increased by nearly 70 percent, well above the national average of 44 percent. In fiscal 1999, the $148 million increase for higher education became the largest in state history.

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The Governor tapped Arthur F. Quern, an Illinois insurance executive, veteran of state government and Edgar’s designated chairman of the Illinois Board of Higher Education, to author a sweeping re-evaluation of the system’s priorities and the quality of higher education. Edgar said undergraduate instruction must be upgraded so community colleges and universities have classes available for all enrolled students and they can complete a four-year bachelor’s degree in four years. Called Priorities, Quality and Productivity (PQP), the program subjected colleges and universities to rigorous accountability and reform. Administration and curricula were modernized, yielding more than $400 million in savings that was reinvested in high priority undergraduate needs. Colleges and universities eliminated, consolidated or downsized more than 600 programs found to be unnecessary due to low enrollments, duplication or poor quality. The reforms won national acclaim.

“You have asked us to make tough decisions, but you invested in us for the betterment of our students and faculty,” Southern Illinois University President Ted Sanders told Edgar.

In addition, the Governor in 1992 called for restructuring the administration of Illinois’ public universities. What resulted was the most far-reaching change in university governance in Illinois since the 1960s.

Signed into law in 1995, the measure gave seven state universities their own governing boards and abolished the Board of Regents and the Board of Governors. Each of the schools Illinois State and Northern Illinois universities, previously governed by the Board of Regents, and Chicago State, Eastern Illinois, Governors State, Northeastern Illinois and Western Illinois universities, previously overseen by the Board of Governors became self-governing, with their campus-based boards appointed by the Governor. The result has been more accountable institutions because responsibility for decision-making and results is localized. Each board also includes a student trustee, elected by the university’s students, who has full voting rights.

The eighth university affected by the new governing plan, Sangamon State University in Springfield, became the third campus of the University of Illinois. The law also gave Edgar authority to appoint the nine University of Illinois trustees instead of having them elected statewide, again increasing accountability and responsibility.

The state saved millions of dollars by eliminating bureaucracy and has been able to invest that money in undergraduate education programs.

“We have brought university governance back to the university campus. No longer will students, parents and faculty have to wander through Springfield’s state bureaucracy to find the people who run their universities,” said Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra, Edgar’s point man on the issue, when the legislation was signed. “Instead, they will be on campus — accessible and informed about the operations of those universities.”

Record-level spending for higher education buttressed undergraduate education. Classes became smaller and were taught by regular faculty members. English and math classes multiplied so students could finish their degree work in four years. Libraries and technology improved.

Edgar strongly advocated cutting-edge technology to provide students with skills sufficient compete technologically advanced environment — one that changes rapidly. He committed more than $240 million in capital, operating and grant funds to enhance technology in colleges and universities.

One effort, begun in 1992, created a telecommunications network for long distance learning within high schools, hospitals, businesses, colleges and universities throughout Illinois. It allows community colleges and universities to simultaneously serve multiple sites, making specialized courses available in a cost-effective way. By 1998, nearly 400 two-way learning sites were in operation. Governor also invested nearly $60 million in equipment, staff, faculty and course content for developing technological resources. And, in the last three years of his administration, another $95 million went for enhanced technological infrastructure on each of the state’s community college and public university campuses.

Edgar initiatives encouraged state institutions to collaborate with business and industry to accommodate an ever-changing workforce. He strived to make sure Illinois had sufficiently and properly educated workers for the 21st century, and that Illinois had enough good jobs to offer.

“Simple schooling was sufficient for most of our colonial ancestors,” Edgar told students at Chicago State University in 1991. “How times have changed. All groups of students today have access to learning and a post-secondary education is now considered absolutely essential for a majority of today’s jobs. Our changing workforce has demanded a changing educational system.”

During the Edgar years, Illinois flourished, uniting its university system with business and industry to create new high technology companies, such as those locating in the Chicago area’s Silicon Prairie. To make sure small businesses had access to expert advice on technology, markets and improved productivity, the Governor developed a working partnership of state universities and businesses as an information clearinghouse.

To put Illinois at the forefront of technological advances and to assist with the state’s economic development, Edgar invested $40 million in the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. NCSA has earned an international reputation for innovative applications in high-performance computing and helped to improve the competitive position of Illinois and American industry by working with leading corporations as partners. These companies learned about high performance computing technologies and applied them in creating breakthrough industrial applications. In 1992, NCSA’s Mosaic browser provided the basis of the technology that helped launch the Internet as a billion dollar industry and an invaluable tool for research and education.

In another example of public and private collaborations in research, Edgar endorsed and supported develop- ment of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont. He committed $13 million to help fund a joint effort by Argonne and six Illinois universities to perform the most advanced X-ray research on new materials.

The Governor promoted a $10 million matching grant program to assist Illinois’ public and private colleges and universities in attracting federal research funds. In 1997, Illinois’ higher education institutions received more than $900 million in federal research money, placing the state among the top five in the nation in attracting research dollars.

“Research advances are making computers faster and airplanes stronger,” Edgar said in signing legislation to create the matching grant fund. “They’re making the air we breathe cleaner and making our medicine better every day. They’re making Illinois and the world a better place to live.”

By 1998, Illinois’ system of higher education enrolled more than 732,000 full-time students in its 12 public university campuses, 49 community college districts and 120 independent colleges and proprietary schools. The state’s public universities offer 643 baccalaureate degree programs, 523 master’s degree programs, 200 doctoral pro- grams and professional degrees in such fields as medicine, dentistry and law. Community colleges, located in districts that encompass all areas of the state, provide baccalaureate-transfer and occupational preparation programs through the associate degree level.

Edgar’s association with the state’s higher education system was to extend beyond his two terms in office. In January 1999, he is to become a distinguished fellow in the University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs, bringing the practical lessons learned during a career in state government that spanned three decades to lecture halls and classrooms.

The Governor invested millions of dollars to bring new technology to students on the state’s university and community college campuses. One initiative, dealing with distance learning, resulted in more than 400 two-way learning sites at schools and businesses throughout Illinois, such as the one shown here in 1994 at Richland Community College.

The state’s community college system provides low-cost education for one out of 11 Illinoisans. Students use these two-year institutions as a foundation for the move toward a more advanced university or college degree.

Industry relies on them to train and retrain workers for the ever-changing technical needs of the job market. Adults look to them for convenient continuing education to improve their marketability or simply to learn something new.

The bargain prices of community colleges have contributed to their wide acceptance. Tuition costs range from $1,000 to $1,600 annually. Tuition, room and board at Illinois public universities run $8,000 a year and that figure jumps to $18,000 a year for a private college, according to a 1997 survey by the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

One deterrent to attending a community college had been the difficulty of transferring credits to a university. But in 1998 the Illinois Community College Board, under the chairmanship of Harry Crisp, a Marion business executive who led the board throughout Edgar’s eight years as Governor, saw to it that would no longer be a problem. The board approved new rules to allow students to easily transfer to any of the state’s 12 public universities or private institutions without losing credit for work already completed.

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Once perceived as the university system’s poor stepchild, community colleges in recent years achieved a much improved reputation only as low-cost places to study, but also as key components of the state’s economic development efforts.

Edgar made it clear that community colleges would be part of the state’s efforts to enhance Illinois’ workforce during the 1990s and into the next century by training and retraining those whose skills and very jobs are becoming obsolete.

“Many of our employers have been telling us that we need workers equipped with finer skills and a greater ability to adapt to changing production technologies,” Edgar said in his April 1992 budget speech. “We must embark on a new educational mission that targets true career development and career potential for young people.”

Illinois became the first state in the nation to guarantee employers that students are proficiently trained in community college occupational programs or those students can repeat a course free if employers are dissatisfied.

During the Edgar administration, community college business and industry centers provided customized training for 420,000 employees, a 181 percent increase. The number of companies served increased by 66 percent to 40,000, and more than 7,000 companies were assisted with start-up and expansion.

Edgar also called on community colleges to help welfare clients to become self-sufficient through training pro- grams. The Department of Public Aid and the Illinois Community College Board created a partnership to transfer responsibility for some welfare-to- work cases to community colleges with expertise in education and training geared to the local economy and labor market. Not only did this allow Illinois to capture federal matching dollars but, by 1997, 5,600 clients a month were getting help from 15 community colleges.

Illinois boasts 49 community colleges in districts scattered through the state that serve more than 1 million full and part-time students each year. One reason these campuses are increasingly popular is their night- time classes for working adults.

In 1991, Edgar announced Arthur F. Quern as his choice for chairman of the State Board of Higher Education during a visit to Illinois Wesleyan University. The Governor and Quern pushed reforms to allow students to finish their undergraduate education in four years.

As the cost of attending Illinois public universities and community colleges escalated, Edgar made sure in- state financial help also increased commensurately, along with new innovative assistance and savings programs so all students could have the opportunity to pursue degrees and their dreams.

For example, while undergraduate tuition and fees at the University of Illinois at Chicago rose to $4,358 for the 1997-98 school year, Edgar in turn increased the maximum grant funds available for a student to $4,320.

During the 1998-99 school year, $310 million will move through the Monetary Awards Program (MAP) to 135,500 students, or nearly one-fifth of the full-time students enrolled in the state’s public and private colleges and universities. Illinois MAP, the second largest need-based program in the nation, trailing only New York’s, provides financial assistance on a need basis to students attending college in Illinois. For the first time, in 1997, the program included students attending accredited degree-granting private institutions. Since Edgar took office, funding for MAP increased 69 percent.

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In addition, scholarship programs for veterans were fully funded at more than $20 million a year.

In 1996, Edgar began the $9 million-a-year Illinois Incentive for Access Grants program to assist the poorest state students beginning their higher education. Up to 18,000 freshmen with no family resources to pay for college are eligible for one-time $500 grants.

While the neediest students saw new and expanded scholarship opportunities, the Governor also addressed problems faced by middle income families who struggle with college costs, but qualify for little or no financial aid.

Edgar approved legislation in 1997 creating a tax- exempt, pre-paid tuition plan allowing parents to lock in current tuition rates years before their children reach college age. Under the College Illinois! plan, parents pay current tuition rates either in a lump sum or over a five- or 10-year period. The state invests the money and the income earned pays the child’s tuition and fees at a public Illinois university or community college.

The College Savings Bond program for families wanting to invest in their children’s future education costs also was extended. By 1998, parents and others had invested $2 billion in the tax-exempt bonds since the program began in 1988.

Edgar used scholarship incentives of up to $5,000 annually to recruit African Americans and Hispanics for teaching careers. As teachers, these individuals can serve as role models for young minority students and offer first-hand evidence of success. “Without those role models in the classrooms, without the encouragement from those who have graduated from college, younger students may never understand the need for continuing their education,” Edgar said. Through the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Aid Program, students who receive financial aid must commit to one year of teaching at an Illinois school with a minority enrollment of at least 30 percent for each year they receive the award.

Following news reports that some lawmakers used a 1905 law to pass out tuition waivers to relatives and the sons and daughters of friends and campaign contributors, the General Assembly passed legislation in 1996 mandating disclosure of recipients’ names and those lawmakers nominating them. Previously, the $4.4 million a year in scholarships went without oversight or provision for public disclosure. Using his amendatory veto powers, Edgar changed the legislation to require not only the student’s and legislator’s name, but also the recipient’s address, name of intended school, the amount of the tuition waiver and certification that the student lives in the district of the lawmaker awarding the scholarship.

“The opportunity for a quality education has become the greatest gift we can give our children and the greatest legacy that we in government can leave to the generations that follow.”– Jim Edgar