School reform bill threatens to ‘crash’ system

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton hopes to pass legislation Tuesday designed to “crash” the state’s public school funding formula in two years to save it.

The measure, Senate Bill 318, would freeze the property tax for two years and create a panel of Democratic and Republican lawmakers (each with an equal number of votes) to devise a new system of funding public education that would not rely as heavily on the property tax — with the ultimate goal of raising more money for public schools and spending more of it in poorer school districts…Please click here to read Phil Kadner’s column in the Tribune/Daily Southtown.