In IL Governor Rod Blagojevich’s 2004 State of the State he expressed his discontent with how the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has handled money. He also blamed the ISBE for Illinois students’ under-performance on 2003 National Testing. Our governor would like to resolve these problems. His first suggestion is to remove all the ISBE administrative powers and responsibilities and place them in a new Department of Education under his administration. The new ISBE role would be to study long-term education policy.

The former president of the ISBE, Ronald Gidwitz, said spending decisions are made by local school districts. According to him, it would seem that Gov. Blagojevich is picking the wrong target. The problem, according to Gidwitz, is not the state school bureaucracy; it's a lack of funding for education. Robert Schiller, the state education superintendent, accused Blagojevich of distorting facts and misleading the public. "What we’ve seen here is a focus being placed on politics and power and not … how we provide equity of funding for 4,000 schools.”

Governor Blagojevich is not going to increase taxes. He is of the opinion that a reduction in school bureaucracies will free up more than $1 billion for Illinois classrooms. In order to achieve this goal, he needs to be in charge of the system, rather than the ISBE. Because our local union suggested that I, being a teacher, should write my legislators in support of Governor Blagojevich’s suggestion, I worry that the union is somehow going to wield even greater control over our local school districts and that cannot be good.

As part of his restructuring, he wants to create a Teacher Certification Board (TCB) to help teachers become certified and help to eliminate lengthy paperwork filing for certificate renewal requirements. What the average person wouldn’t be aware of is that teachers getting initial certification simply apply for certification upon completion of their course of study at a college or university. This, of course, includes meeting the required hours of observation and student teaching and passing the general and subject tests required for their particular credentials. This is a pretty straight forward process. Having enrolled in an educational certification program at the undergraduate or graduate level assures the student that if requirements for the state change during their course of study, they will be unaffected because they have already begun their degree program.

Certificate renewal has become a little more cumbersome because now teachers have to account for additional educational training by providing CPDUs or graduate credit hours. This isn’t all that difficult though. Schools issue CPDUs for nearly every bit of training their teachers receive. Workshops issue CPDUs to those teachers in attendance. I completed my CPDUs in less than two years and teachers usually have 4 years to compile their credits.

Governor Blagojevich wants to pass legislation which requires elementary school teachers to complete half their education hours based on best practices on how to teach children to read. Although I understand how important it is to learn to read, it is the goal of most schools that their students learn how to decode by the end of first grade. Children hone their reading skills as they go through the educational system. Good readers read at home as well as at school. That is why it is so important that families of young readers model reading rather than spending time in front of the T.V. Parents need to place a high priority on reading in the home. These children should be required to read books as part of their daily routine. If students don’t read on their own, they do not become good readers. No amount of educational training on the part of the teacher will change that fact.

If the above such legislation was actually implemented, subjects such as science, social studies, and math would suffer since the upper elementary teachers would earn half of their education hours in reading methods. Reading is important and many teachers choose to earn a reading endorsement. However, schools need teachers that specialize in different subject areas so that students can be the beneficiaries of their expertise.

The governor contradicts himself when he suggests that more educational training in reading methods classes are necessary to improve our teachers’ potential to reach their students, yet in the same breath suggests creating a teaching task force which would study the issue of alternative routes to teacher certification. If educational training in reading is so important to becoming a good teacher, then I don’t understand why he doesn’t put his resources into studying why current educational practices aren’t working, rather than recruiting people from other fields with no educational experience, as it were.

The governor endorses a Childhood Hunger Relief Act which would require schools to provide breakfast to poor children. In addition, he wants to reinstate Project Success, which would use the school as a hub of delivery for basic preventative health care services for children; proper nutrition and education; mental services for children and families; services promoting the stability of families; substance abuse prevention; and intervention and social activities to bolster parental and community involvement in a child’s education. While the goal may be admirable, it should be pointed out that many schools simply do not have the facilities to carry out these kinds of responsibilities. Where I work, we don’t even have a separate cafeteria. Our kids eat lunch in the gym and it is a constant rush to get them outside so the janitors can clean up for PE.

Besides, it should be the parents’ responsibility of getting their kids health care, feeding them, and getting involved in their education. If parents can’t manage this, the community can choose to provide these types of services but not necessarily by putting the additional burden on the schools. Teachers and administrators are strapped for time and resources as it is. The rest of the community can step up and "be the village.” Public schooling was put in place to ensure an educated citizenry. It seems forgotten that this is the schools primary mission. While his intentions may be good, unless Gov. Blagojevich wants to create these hubs in separate buildings attached to the schools, I just don’t see this as being feasible.

I agree with the governor’s suggestion that soda and junk food be banned and that there should be legislation eliminating unhealthy snacks from school vending machines and replacing them with juice, water and milk. I’m amazed at the amount of garbage the students at my school consume. Candy is sold at school to create additional revenue for various extracurricular programs. Aside from the litter generated from wrappers strewn about, many of the healthier choices from their subsidized school lunches are pitched when Snickers and Sour Punch Straws are made available for purchase.

In addition to healthier food choices, there should be an end to physical education waivers. Keep in mind that there needs to be an alternative way to accommodate students who can’t participate in the regular PE curriculum for legitimate reasons.

Achieving success in today’s society begins with earning a high school diploma. The key word here is "earning”. Too many students that graduate from high school do not deserve their diplomas. A GRADS program to help students, particularly Latino and African American students, stay in school and earn their high school diplomas needs to take the reality of this fact into consideration and act accordingly.

I applaud the idea of an Illinois Tech Prep program to expand existing class curricula so to allow high school students to move into vocational programs. Technology preparation programs should begin in high school and lead to apprenticeships, associate degree programs or two-year certificate programs. This would boost the graduation rate among participants and, most of all, a non traditional course of study will be offered that will lead to employment.

Governor Blagojevich wants to spend $15 million on 143 reading specialists to work downstate and an undetermined number to work in Chicago at schools that aren't meeting state standards. Any parent whose child is the recipient of reading recovery services has to sign a contract agreeing to work on the books at home with their child. Parents who break the contract have the services dropped. Think about it, if classroom teachers could have the same type of contract signed with regard to regular educational services, we wouldn’t need so many specialists. By requiring all parents to meet the responsibility of helping their children with homework, the amount of remediation in school would not go up proportionately with how many years a child has spent in the system. Homework is nothing more than reinforcing what is done during school. Practice is the key. Bottom line: the one on one attention that a reading specialist gives would be ineffective if parents and students weren’t required to do their part at home. Lack of parental involvement with their children’s education is often the reason the classroom teacher can’t assure a child’s progress in any given subject area.

The governor wants to spend $6 million to implement a new requirement that students perform 40 hours of community service before graduating. As much as I would like to see all U.S. citizens perform community service within their lifetime, by forcing students to do so our government would be treading on their rights. Rather than insisting on 40 hours of community service before graduation, students should be educated in civic responsibility beginning in the early elementary grades; to aspire to make positive changes in their local communities, to learn that along with the rights afforded to them as citizens comes civic responsibility, and that they can affect change by working as part of their communities and local government. As a result of their moral education, students would be more intrinsically motivated to perform community service without being required to do so because of external consequences that have nothing to do with the act itself. Public service would be a more positive experience and more meaningful to the student and the recipient of this service if it is done because the student wanted to do it.

Finally, he wants to spend $5 million to resurrect a program that delivers social services through schools and $26 million to give every child 5 and under one free book a month. Governor Blagojevich wants to take 26 million out of our taxpayer money to give away books? What happened to libraries? The last I heard, libraries were free. Of course, the people who check out the books have to be responsible about it. They must take care of them and return them. Is that asking too much? By sending a free book to the home there is no guarantee that it will be read. It could end up being used to line the litter box. There is a much greater guarantee that a trip to the library would inspire kids to read. The local library has a plethora of services to involve their local communities in reading. Not to mention, there is a larger selection of books from which to choose.

I haven’t heard much discussion about IL Governor Blagojevich’s State of the State speech in educational circles or anywhere else. I wonder how many people tuned in or if anyone was listening.

Nancy Salvato is a middle school teacher in Illinois and an independent contractor for Prism Educational Consulting. She is the Educational Liaison to IL Sen. Ray Soden and she works with national and local organizations furthering the cause of Civic Education. She is a columnist for American Daily, The Common Voice, GOP-USA, OpinionEditorials and The New Media Journal.us. Her writing has been recognized by the US Secretary of Education. She has been published in The Washington Times, The Washington Dispatch, Iconoclast, Free Republic Network & Townhall.com., as well as other nationally and internationally published media outlets.