Editorial: Bill in Springfield would punish the pandemic success of private schools
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDCHICAGO TRIBUNE |MAY 12, 2021 AT 5:04 PM
A bill moving through the Illinois House and Senate in Springfield has private schools worried. It establishes state-mandated “metrics” that schools must meet before they can offer in-person learning. The concern: The legislation could make it harder for schools to reopen this fall.
Many private schools, including most in the Archdiocese of Chicago and other faith-based schools across the state, worked with local health officials last summer and fall to figure out how to safely offer in-person learning when many public school buildings remained closed due to COVID-19.ADVERTISING
The archdiocese, for example, established a task force of health experts and implemented their recommendations, including requiring temperature-taking, mask-wearing and limited movement of kids between classrooms. It worked. The private school model got kids into classrooms sooner — in some cases eight months sooner — than public schools and with few major disruptions.
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But a bill could change that going forward. House Bill 2789, sponsored by Rep. Michelle Mussman, D-Schaumburg, and Sen. Christopher Belt, D-Centreville, would directly insert the Illinois Department of Public Health into the operations of nonpublic schools — and not just during health emergencies. The health agency, not private school systems, schools or principals, would establish the rules for nonpublic schools to open — or to close them.
If COVID cases change or escalate between now and the fall, there is concern that the new centralized rules could prevent many schools from being able to open.
No surprise who is behind the effort — the teacher unions and their allies. The legislation flew through the Illinois House on a party-line vote last month with Democrats supporting it and Republicans opposed.
Private school lobbying groups consider the bill “an obvious attempt to prevent us from offering in-person instruction,” one group told us.
But it also removes local control from all school districts which have shown, particularly during the pandemic, that a one-size-fits-all approach would be the wrong one. Each district, each community, had the ability to shape how and when their students returned to school. This would change that.
If passed in the Senate and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, lawmakers and the governor would be punishing the successful private school model. They would be opening the door to more government overreach, more cumbersome regulations. That, in the end, would harm school kids and their learning.
The teacher unions and their allies are calling the bill the “Safe Schools Bill.” We’d say that’s a major misnomer. A more accurate name for the legislation? “How to Keep Schools Closed.”
