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Legislative Update, February 15, 2005 State Representative Joe Lyons (D-Chicago) has introduced House Bill 1577, the Opportunity Scholarship Act. This bill is the number one priority of the Catholic Conference in the education field. It establishes Opportunity Scholarships for low-income children in the City of Chicago to acquire tutoring services or attend a nonpublic school of their choice. The bill also allows for the expansion of these scholarships to other parts of the state after three years. We should all be interested in this bill's fate! Please call, write, or fax your State Representative and ask him or her to be a co-sponsor of House Bill 1577. At this point, we want to focus on acquiring co-sponsors because it adds weight to the legislation and is directly tied to the support of that legislator. I encourage you to use every tool at your disposal over the next three months to encourage your state representative to co-sponsor House Bill 1577. Personal visits, letters from school children, petition drives, phone calls, emails, and faxes can all be effective. Accordingly, I have posted a bill description,sample letter, informational flyer for parents, and a fact sheet on CCI's web site that you can use in your efforts: www.catholicconferenceofillinois.org. In the Senate, there are also school choice bills that the Catholic Conference supports. Both Senate Bill 85, Senator Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton), and Senate Bill 296, Senator Dan Cronin (R-Lombard), increase the tuition tax credit from $500 to $1000. If you want to assist in these efforts, please call, write, or fax your State Senator and ask them to support Senate Bills 85 and 296. I will also put a sample letter for this on CCI's web site. You can also go to www.peterroskam.com and sign a petition in support of Senate Bill 85. If you need help identifying your state representative or senator, you can visit the Illinois General Assembly web page at www.ilga.gov and click on Legislator Lookup in the lower right corner of the home page, or you can call the Catholic Conference of Illinois at 312-368-1066 or 217-528-9200, and we will help you identify your state representative. Thank you for all your efforts. I will continue to keep you updated as we move forward. Zachary WichmannAssociate Director Catholic Conference of Illinois 217-528-9200 Thank you. Legislative Update, January 13, 2005 As today marks the end of the two-year term of the 93rd General Assembly and the beginning of the 94th General Assembly, I wanted to give you all a brief overview of what has happened and what we are expecting. In the 93rd General Assembly, we successfully defeated proposals to eliminate and reduce the tuition tax credit (~$65 million) and to eliminate or reduce the funding for the Textbook Loan (~$29 million) and Parent Transportation Reimbursement(~$15 million) programs. We successfully restored and are now in the process of streamlining the nonpublic school recognition program, and we held a large rally for nonpublic schools in the Capitol building. Our schools also weathered drastic changes at the Illinois State Board of Education which necessitated changes in our technology planning process -- for the better as it happens -- and our teachers and administrators should benefit in a streamlining of the certification and re-certification processes. At the same time on the federal level, we helped restore funding for Title V and assisted in the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act with stronger provisions for parentally placed students with disabilities in private schools. For more information on any or all of these issues, please visit CCI's web site at www.catholicconferenceofillinois.org or call me at 217-528-9200. There were also things that did not go our way. A new unfunded state mandate may require each of our schools to install an automated external defibrillator by July 1, 2006. However, the rules implementing this mandate have yet to be published, so we are not sure of its effects. You will hear from me as soon as more is known. As for the 94th General Assembly, CCI has set two priorities for the upcoming year. First, in the next two weeks, we will introduce a voucher bill designed to create a pilot voucher program in the City of Chicago with an opportunity in later years to expand statewide. Although we do not expect to pass the bill this year, we will use it to organize around and maintain a grassroots advocacy network in our schools and to the legislature. As soon as the bill is introduced, I will send you all the details and requests for action. Secondly, later in the Spring, we will push for more money in the Parent Transportation Reimbursement program. School districts across the state continue to curtail or eliminate bus service for private school students and this is one way of counterbalancing the effects. In the interest of full disclosure, I will soon be participating in this program myself, but that is not the reason for our focus on it. Again, you will hear more from me on this soon. Also, in the Fall of this year, CCI will be hosting training seminars across the state to train principals in engaging their local education agencies to ensure their equitable participation in all Title programs and in IDEA. There will also be training on grassroots advocacy. As you can see, we have a lot to accomplish in the upcoming year. Please commit yourself to this work by ensuring that each school has a legislative action person or committee ready to coordinate grassroots activity on behalf of legislation affecting Catholic schools in Illinois. Thank you all for the great support you have given so far and let's keep up the good fight! Zachary Wichmann
LATEST ALERT, November 11, 2003 There is good news to report! Our legislation reinstating state recognition for nonpublic schools passed the House today with 115 yes votes, 0 no votes, and one person voting present! For procedural reasons, the bill voted on was not House Bill 3852 nor 3853. We had to move the content of those bills to Senate Bill 1014. Senate Bill 1014 now contains the language reinstating the nonpublic school recognition program and is what the House approved. This bill (SB 1014) will now go to the Senate for a vote. That vote will take place between November 18 - 20.
LATEST ALERT, OCTOBER 22, 2003 Subject: ACTION ALERT: NONPUBLIC SCHOOL RECOGNITION LEGISLATION Finally, the end may be in sight. We have introduced two bills to mandate and fund a voluntary nonpublic school recognition program through the Illinois State Board of Education. They are House Bills 3852 and 3853. We need all, teachers, parents, and interested parishioners to call, write, email, and/or fax our representatives and Governor and ask they support of House Bills 3852 and 3853: It is important that you do this as soon as possible. We have six days in the November veto session (Nov. 4, 5, and 6 and Nov. 18, 19, and 20) to pass these bills. Your message is simple: Please vote yes on House Bills 3852 and 3853 to restore and fund the nonpublic school recognition program. This is a vital service the state has provided our schools for over 25 years. Our schools provide quality education to hundreds of thousands of students across this state, and our work and sacrifice saves the state billions of dollars annually. We deserve the state's recognition and the many tangible benefits associated with it, such as the Textbook Loan program, eligibility to participate in interscholastic activities, and the ability to train student teachers
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