Citing his experiences as a community school board president and a teacher, legislative candidate Mike Phillips (D-Lostant) today called for strong state action to solve the education funding crisis that faces Illinois.

“Our local property taxpayers are carrying the burden of supporting local schools. We must cut the dependence on property taxes.  I will make education funding reform my top priority in the state legislature,” Phillips declared.

Phillips said Illinois state government ranks near the bottom in supporting local schools. He has personally dealt with that lack of state support as president of the Lostant school board and seen the same effect in his role as a community college instructor at Illinois Valley Community College.

“Education is the key to many of Illinois ’ needs.  A good education system leads to better jobs, higher wages, and lower crime rates.  Education is best viewed as an investment in the future of our children and our state.  If we do not make that investment, we cannot expect to reap the benefits.

“The people we have sent to Springfield, including my opponent, have failed to take any meaningful steps to fix the problems facing education.  As a teacher and a school board president, I have to deal with the problems created by their inaction.  As I travel around central Illinois, I see schools in need of repair, over-loaded classrooms, out-of-date textbooks, and teachers wondering about their retirement.  Because they are dedicated, most teachers make do with what they have or buy what they need out of their own pocket.  This is not the way to operate our schools.”

Phillips proposes building on the work of groups such as A+ Illinois and Speak Out for Illinois Schools to plan for the future of education in Illinois.  He believes that the state should ask participants such as the Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois PTA to help the state work out a solution to the crisis.

“The first step is to build a broad, non-partisan coalition that includes parents, educators, farmers, and the business community among others.  This coalition is already coming into place and demanding action.  The next step is to have leaders within the coalition develop a proposal with meaningful reforms in both how we provide education and how we pay for it.  There are already some great ideas on the table.  We need to sit down, sort through those ideas, and pick out the best ones.”

Phillips explained that the biggest step will be funding reform.  “It is clear that any realistic solution will require changes in the funding structure, and these changes will require a level of voter trust which is currently lacking.  Working from the recommendations of the proposed coalition will help to overcome the appearance of partisan bias or regional favoritism. Additionally, we will need to make the budget open and accessible to the public, and we will need to lock all funding into place to ensure it will not be diverted.  The bottom line is the need for action; we can no longer afford to sit back and hope the problems will fix themselves.”

Phillips will continue to travel the district to discuss his ideas with voters.  Phillips is seeking to represent the 106th Illinois House district, which covers portions of LaSalle, Livingston, McLean, Tazewell, and Woodford Counties in central Illinois.  Anyone interested in finding out more can visit Phillips’s campaign web site at www.phillipsforhouse.com.