One day a few weeks ago, I took a drive out to Wilmette to visit the Marie Murphy School, a public middle school not far off the Edens Expressway. My host was Bruce Cook, a sixth-grade teacher I’d met at a party. He had graciously offered to give me a tour of his school so I could see how the other half lived. I tried not to gape, but for a guy used to the barren impoverishment of Chicago’s schools–even its highly regarded magnet schools–it looked like Shangri-la.
The teachers I met were energetic, friendly, and eager to show their stuff. They have a strong union, and they’re protected by a collective-bargaining agreement that, among other things, keeps their salaries in the range of $39,423 to $94,968 and limits class size to 25. They take class size seriously in Wilmette. The parents have made it clear they do not want their children in overcrowded classrooms.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
As you should know by now, the TIFs were designed to use property tax dollars to subsidize development in poor, blighted communities that would otherwise attract no private investment. In reality the program’s become a multi-billion-dollar slush fund that Daley uses to help well-connected developers build upscale projects in the pricier parts of town.
Even if every unit at Union Station sells, the project won’t generate any new taxes for the schools for years to come because it’s in a TIF district. New property taxes in TIF districts don’t go to the schools and parks–they go back into the TIF for the life of the TIF. The Canal-Congress TIF doesn’t expire until 2021.
So there you have it. Wilmette spends its tax dollars on its children, while in Chicago we take money from our schools and funnel it to millionaires.
