From the Illinois Leader,
Monday, May 03, 2004

By Cal Skinner

A Harvard couple volunteers to spread a message of how schools could improve, taxes could be held back and budget spending could be cut.HARVARD -- In the rural town of Harvard, a married couple has taken on the task of helping schools and taxpayers by sharing ideas for education reform. Calling their plan "No Taxpayer Left Behind," Jim and Cathy Peschke are searching for common sense changes in public school spending.

"The idea behind it is to empower school districts to control costs," Mr. Peschke explained. "You may have heard about other plans that are out there. The major difference is that other plans speak to getting more money for schools. We seek to allow schools to spend less money."

The Peschkes got involved in school politics when their Harvard unit school district asked for a new high school building for a third time. The first referendum for $31 million "was defeated badly," Peschke said. The next one for $28 million "almost passed."

"We decided if they ran it a third time we were going to do something about it," he said.

The school board thought the third time would be the charm and put a 50-cent educational tax on the ballot, as well as a request for a new high school. The Peschkes' became activated to fight the referendum.

"We started out a little half-heartedly, writing letters to the editor in the Northwest Herald (the local daily paper), he explained. "We had an amazing outpouring of support as a result of those letters. That's when we got serious. We started getting people to hand out flyers. More people than we ever thought we'd get helped us. We were driving all over handing out pamphlets. Our entire campaign ended up costing us $250 (for printing pamphlets)."

On election day, the final vote was 63 percent "No" on the building and 53 percent "No" on the education fund.

"During that campaign, it became clear that the building (request) was doomed, so the teachers promoted the idea of supporting only the ed fund referendum," Peschke explained. "They tried to shift it all that way after they discovered the new high school referendum was going down," he said.

On this past March 16th primary ballot, the district tried again, this time with a 60-cent education fund tax rate request. It was also soundly defeated.

But, Pescke's goal in life does not include fighting referendums forever.

"We decided early on that we didn't want to fight the referendum battle forever," he said. "We wanted a long-term solution that would end the referenda altogether.

"We developed a plan for statewide reform using feedback from the community," he explained. "It's called 'No Taxpayer Left Behind' (NTLB). NTLB is a five-step state level plan. The idea behind it is to empower school districts to control costs.

"You may have heard about other plans that are out there. The major difference is that others' plans speak to getting more money for schools," he said. "We seek to allow schools to spend less money. It's a five-step plan. We're trying to get people in the legislature interested."

Peschke outlined the five steps:

* Step 1 - The first and most important step is to ban teachers' strikes. It is the hammer by which they beat the head of school districts. Homeowners can't strike and refuse to pay property taxes. School districts are required to remain open and essential services such as firemen and police are generally forbidden from striking as well. Only nine states currently allow teachers to strike, and Illinois is one of them.

* Step 2 - Eliminate tenure. "What we understand is that the origin of tenure was aimed at university professors so that they are not afraid to publish controversial research," Peschke said. "Tenure doesn't protect good teachers. It only protects bad teachers."

* Step 3 - Revise collective bargaining laws. School districts should not be required to bargain with any union with which they don't want to bargain, Peschke said. "If teachers' strikes are allowed, we believe that the school districts should have the uncontested right to replace any teacher on strike."

* Step 4 - Vouchers and tax credits. "We want a full voucher program, no strings attached and, most importantly, no additional requirements for private schools," he said. "We think parents, not the government, should decide where their kids are educated."

* Step 5 - Eliminate the forced dues provision. The district and the union can negotiate a contract that forces non-union teachers to pay union dues. This amounts to a work tax for teachers to their union, Peschke said.

Has any of the Peschke's efforts made progress with legislators?

"We have talked to State Rep. Jack Franks(D-Woodstock) and State Senator Pam Althoff (R-McHenry)" he said. "Jack Franks disagreed with the elements of NTLB. We met with Pam before property tax swap advocate Ralph Martire's recent talk in Huntley. In words, she agreed with many things we said, but also made it very clear that she wasn't able to do anything about it."

When Mrs. Peschke read that Huntley's school referendum would have opposition, she contacted and the two met with opponents in an attempt to gain support for their "No Taxpayer Left Behind" program. She also assisted with literature design and strategy.

As a part of their efforts, the Peschke's also attended a Cary meeting of CAUSE (Citizens Against Unnecessary Spending in Education), a group who opposed the 70-cent tax high for the community's grade school. There they met Chris Jenner, a Cary man who has formed his own group called FATT, a parody of the group FACT, which supported the tax hike. They (the proponents) had a group called FACT.

Later, the Peschke's and Jenner spoke at another Cary anti-tax hike group, CARE (Communities for Accountable and Responsible Educations), workshop. CARE was another Cary group opposing the March referendum.

Most recently, the Peschkes and Jenner spoke at Richmond's Nippersink Library to people "just starting to form a resistance group," as Peschke puts it.

Jenner talked about how teacher and administrator raises are far above the cost of living. He also briefly spoke about how the Cary pro-referendum group distorted data, in this case they used old salary data before a strike that came with a huge 18% raise.

"Cathy spoke about debunking the rhetoric of the pro-referendum camp," her husband explained. "She basically debunked the 'smaller classes are better' myth. She also showed that more money does not improve education. She showed them low teacher pay is myth. The other thing she went into is an explanation into the way the economics work with regard to education fund referenda. She basically showed them all the factors the educators blame these referendums on-growth, inflation-using the tax structure the taxes will automatically increase to offset these costs. The bottom line being, no matter what the inflation or the growth rate is, the education tax rate will support the system.

"They say, 'More money means better schools,' Peschke explained. "You would not expect this happen because public schools are not a free market system. One thing they will often say is that we need this money to hire and retain the best teachers. Our comment was, 'Does that mean if the referendum passed, would you then get rid of all your teachers and replace them with better teachers, using the extra money to get them?'

"Of course, they're not going to do that. So, how does more money make the schools better?" he asked.

Leading up to the March primary, the Peschke's helped to network opposition to tax referendums in McHenry County. Twelve of thirteen referendum battles with which the Peschke's engaged were defeated.

The Peschke's victories energized the them to continue on their mission.

"We will go anywhere in Illinois to present this information," they said, and asked to be contacted at noreferendum@joltmail.com.

© 2004 Illinois Leader.com