Editorial: Lessons of East Aurora - First stop the bleeding
More than a quarter of high school students at East Aurora are chronically truant. Only 64 percent of seniors graduated in 2015 - and that's an improvement. There are no buses to carry elementary students to and from their schools. The swimming pool got paved over for classrooms. Districtwide, nearly all 15,000 students live in poverty.
For most suburban parents, if their school district looked like this, they'd be running for the hills. In East Aurora Unit District 131, where these statistics are the reality, nobody can afford a trip to the hills or anywhere else.
Our three-part Generations at Risk series, which ran this week, chronicles the obstacles to getting an education in East Aurora - and some successes. It did what journalism is supposed to do, which is to shine a spotlight on underreported or overlooked aspects of society.
It's something our state leaders should do when considering a better formula to fund education.
East Aurora and other poor districts that rely disproportionately on state funds are getting slammed. East Aurora has lost nearly $40 million in the last five years and doesn't have the property values to make up the difference locally.
If, as District 131 suspects, there's no way that money can be replaced, the very least the state needs to do is stop the bleeding. That's Priority One.
Right now, with several funding bills floating around Springfield, it's becoming clear that no Robin Hood formula (take from the wealthiest and give to the poorest) will ever pass Springfield. And probably none should.
Illinois continues to rank dead last or near-last in education funding among the 50 states. The obvious rejoinder to that depressing statistic should be to stop treating education funding like a zero-sum bank account, where the only way poor schools get more money is to take it from property-rich ones.
The answer must be more money spent on Illinois education.
All of us, after all, are affected when the educations and futures of Illinois children are compromised by their own poverty and that of their schools.
As we editorialized during our first Generations at Risk series last summer, the ripple effects of poverty on the community are pervasive - from the lack of a skilled workforce to lower economic growth to the need for support systems for the poor, the rise in crime and the loss in community harmony.
Fixing this, finally and forever, is not just the right thing to do. It's the smart thing to do. For everyone.