It's tight, but CPS is hanging tough The state is likely to fall further behind in school funding.

Arne Duncan has one of the toughest jobs in the city. As themayor's guy at the Chicago Public Schools, Duncan is charged witherasing years of bad attitudes, poor performance and negativestereotypes at one of the biggest public school systems in thecountry -- all under the critical eye of tapped-out taxpayers.

It's a job that would make most of us want to give up and go backto bed. Not Duncan. After three years in this pressure-cookerposition as chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, hestill has the energy and enthusiasm for the job. During an interview,we talked about his pride in the system, his plans for this schoolyear and his frustration that Illinois politicians still lack thepolitical will to fix education funding.

"This past year was probably the best year academically we've everhad. It was an extraordinary year, based on a million differentindicators," he said as he began rattling them off: Iowa tests scoresrose 63 percent; two-thirds of eighth-graders beat national norms inreading and math; the dropout rate fell to 11.9 percent, from 26percent in 2001, and the percentage of students ranking in the bottomquartile fell to 24 percent, down from 48 percent in 1992.

"I am extraordinarily encouraged," he said. "Having said that, westill have a long way to go. We're not where we can be, where weshould be, where we will be. But it's a huge step in the rightdirection."

Duncan plans to do more once school reopens on Sept. 7 -- morepreschool programs to give kids a boost before they enterkindergarten, more after-school programs to keep kids studying andoff the street, more tutoring to get kids up to speed and morecharter schools and magnet schools to keep middle-class kids in thesystem.

It would be nice if he got some help from the politicians to doall of that. But they remain unwilling to correct the fundinginequity that means Chicago Public Schools spend about half as muchper student as wealthy school districts.

"Think how much faster we could be moving in terms of acceleratingthe pace of change if we had a level playing field," said the formerHarvard basketball star.

He was referring, of course, to the inability of the IllinoisLegislature and the flat-out refusal of Gov. Blagojevich to revamp anutterly inequitable education funding system. Yet another legislativesession has passed without action on a problem that now threatens thesolvency of public school districts around the state. Some 80 percentof the state's 891 school districts statewide will spend money theydon't have just to keep the school doors open this year.

Education administrators around the state -- Duncan included --are hoping this will amount to enough of a crisis to finally spurpolitical action. Sadly, it isn't likely to happen under our "no newtaxes" governor.

Instead, the state is likely to fall further behind in schoolfunding, despite a constitution that says: "The State has the primaryresponsibility for financing the system of public education."

Although politicians argue that statement is vague -- I guessbecause it doesn't lay out an actual percentage -- I fail to see howanyone believes the state is meeting its mandate when it suppliesonly about 36 percent of the money local districts need to educate anaverage student.

Yes, the new budget includes more money for education. But thegovernor had promised $250 more per student. House Speaker MichaelMadigan allowed him only $154. That leaves Duncan with significantlyless money to educate 438,000 students. So he is doing the only thinghe can: hitting up overburdened taxpayers once again.

If the state abided by its constitution -- paying 51 percent ofthe cost of public education -- it would mean an additional $2billion for public schools statewide, about $400 million of whichwould go to Chicago, Duncan said.

"Imagine what we could do in terms of class size, summer school,after-school programs, capital improvements -- all the things we knowmake a difference in kids' lives," he said. "Imagine what we coulddo with these kids' lives then."

Hard to imagine our elected leaders keep refusing to adequatelyfund public education.