A collection of teachers and instructors from public education labor unions came together Friday in Uptown Normal to call for more funding for education and public services.
The “People Over Profits” rally featured members of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, Illinois Education Association [IEA], the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans, ISU Labor Coalition and the United Faculty of ISU.
Ashley Farmer is the president of United Faculty of ISU, UPI Local 4100. She said budgets in higher education are moral documents.
“Budgets show where priorities are, and not just what, but who is valued,” she said. “Workers in Illinois have been undervalued for far too long. Funding for education, healthcare and social services should be a top priority.”
Farmer called attention to the elected officials of the state. She said they claim to care about education, but the state continually sees education funding struggle anyway.
“Now the costs have shifted onto the backs of students and their families as universities rely on tuition for the overwhelming majority of their revenue,” Farmer said. “Illinois institutions of higher education have been underfunded by at least $1.4 billion. That absence is felt as tuition rises, services get cut, class sizes increase and workers who dedicate their lives to serving students are told to fight for scraps.”
Despite Illinois State University [ISU] having seen record-breaking enrollment in recent years, Farmer said there have been reports of overpacked dorms and budget cuts.
“ISU administration has decided to implement a new Hunger Games-style of budget, that will force departments and colleges to compete for funds and is demanding that everyone who works here figure out how to do more with less,” she said.
The new system to which Farmer referred is a budgeting tool ISU announced it would implement this year. In a presentation last year, ISU Vice President for Finance and Planning Glen Nelson said the new model would allow for money to be reallocated from colleges with a surplus in order to stabilize others with a deficit.
IEA President Karl Goeke, a high school Spanish teacher, said to be an educator in Illinois is to be trusted with the future.
“We are trusted with the children of the nation. They come to us as kindergarteners, oftentimes as pre-K, and our unions represent the educators all the way until they graduate from college,” he said.
Goeke said it is important to put people over profits.
“We need to remember that the majority of us will never be part of the 1% no matter how hard we work. We need to recognize that the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is monumental and cannot be bridged,” said Goeke. “So, I ask you today, when you leave here, to think about what you can do. What can you take back to your community?”
Goeke invited members at the rally to reach out to those who share their values, regardless of how they may otherwise differ.
Elston Flowers, vice president of the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans [IARA], called attention to the increasing age of retirement in the state for those in secondary education. He said his former colleagues at Pontiac Township High School are still working, while he retired years ago.
“I got out at 55 and I don’t have to work 'til [I’m] 67, and why is that that they’re working till they’re 67? It’s because of Springfield,” said Flowers. “Because they can’t control money properly, they put it on the backs of the ordinary citizens who are hired by the state.”
Flowers’ friends are a victim of the mishandled pension system, he said. It’s an issue IARA is working to address.
“How many people think they can stay [working] 'til 67 doing work like physical education, whether you’re at the university level or in the graduate level,” he said. “I would hate to be a kindergarten teacher trying to chase around little kids. Heck, I don’t even like chasing around my nephews and nieces.”
Gov. JB Pritzker proposed a plan to fully fund the Illinois pension system by 2048.
State Rep. Sharon Chung, a Democrat from Bloomington, spoke at the rally. As one of the area’s representatives in Springfield, she said it is important for the unions to keep working.
“We have to lift each other up, especially in this time,” she said. “We are in some really, really tough times now, everybody, and I’m just going to break it to you straight here, all everything that we’re feeling from the federal government, all those cuts at the state level, we have to figure out how we’re going to pay for those cuts.”
Chung said she has been vocal with Pritzker and his office to release an additional 2% of higher education funding at his discretion.
