North Cook News

Jillian Bernas, candidate for state representative in the 56th District, believes that education has been neglected by Springfield politics and is disheartened that the state sometimes loses focus on its students. 

“For about seven years, I was a teacher," Bernas recently told North Cook News. "I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know sometimes we take the focus off the students, especially when it gets to the political. People aren’t focused on the students. They are focused on the big bureaucracy, and that’s often hard to find that center. And it should be student-centered.” 

This desire to help the students has lead Bernas to disprove of Sen. Andy Manar’s recent proposal to rewrite the education funding formula in the state, which was met with fervent opposition by Gov. Bruce Rauner.

“They have been looking at reforming the education formula funding for a while,” Bernas said. “It wasn’t necessarily anything new, and I understand that the proposal was being considered by the Illinois State Board of Education. They were looking at (what) it would mean for the school districts in the state. The outcome of that analysis shows that it would definitely favor the big school districts in Chicago over the suburban school district and the down state school district.”

According to an analysis by the state board of education, the proposed funding would result in large discrepancies among school district, favoring larger areas, such as the Chicago schools, over suburban districts.

“In my case, the district where I am running for state representative, many families move to it because of the schools,” she said. “That was the experience with my family. My parents worked really hard. They paid the high property taxes to fund my brother and me to attend the schools. What we are seeing here is that with the new funding formula proposed by Rep. Manar and his party, the students in Cook County would, per student, lose close to a thousand dollars in funding. The DuPage side would be close to $323 of the state funding.”

Bernas believes that, if the proposal were to pass, it would place a heavy burden on local schools and tax payers.

“That would be a shock to the system especially when the school board is looking at how they are going to fund their programs,” she said. “So if all of a sudden, they have to respond to that shock, it would be really hard for families, the tax paying families in our community, to absorb that change.”

Under the proposal, Chicago might get millions of dollars for funding. Bernas noted that the school district in Chicago is currently spending more than $14,000 on every student and, yet, of the students that graduate high school in four years, only 20 percent are considered “college ready." She stated that Illinois has failed these students and asserts that these policies have caused damage to the state, her local community and families.

Bernas intends to go to Springfield to fight for change.

“These are the types of Springfield policies that have bankrupted our state, and it’s causing families to flee Illinois," she said. "It has caused families to flee Illinois. I think it just demonstrates how out of touch the political class is with our lives. So I’m trying to go to Springfield to protect our community, to protect our quality of life, protect the investments that my community has already made.”

Protecting the future is important for Bernas, who was pleased to hear that the Illinois Senate approved an additional $454 million in spending for struggling colleges and universities.

“I know that it’s been an issue for quite awhile that many students that attend those institutions are relying on those grants for their education, and so it was a really scary time and I think that’s where the policies have brought us to,” Bernas said. “Those students should be focused on education; they should be focused on their homework. They shouldn’t be worried where their grants are going to come from. That should be the state legislature’s responsibility.”

The prolonged budget battle in Springfield has already caused damage, however. Higher education institutions have been forced to lay off staff. For example, Chicago State University let go more than 300 employees this month -- about a third of its workforce.

Bernas pointed out that this is another instance of state legislature not serving the people.

“The state legislature has been playing games to protect their power with our lives and livelihood,” she said. “They’re been making promises that they know they can’t keep. And now that they failed, they’ve trying to place the blame on families and tax payers in the state. So I’m very happy to see that the grants were appropriated so that students could continue their education. It shouldn’t come down to a last-minute decision. We need to approve a budget -- a balanced budget -- and we need to make sure that these aren’t last minute decisions … we can’t continue to play these games.”

Bernas concluded by challenging Rep. Michelle Mussman (D-District 56) and her party, claiming that the state representative has unsuccessfully served the district.

“We see these politicians that are always working to protect themselves," Bernas said. "It doesn’t seem that my opponent, Rep. Mussman, and her party are interested in protecting the quality of schools in our community and making sure our students get an excellent education. It almost looks like she and her party want to punish our community.”