Four R’s: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Reform Top Local Education
Agendas
Certain back-to-school signs
are hard to miss, such as store shelves freshly stocked with crayons and
notebooks
and
Chicago’s
annual Bud Biliken Day Parade. Yet August also brings renewed urgency to the
fact that more schools than ever across the state are in financial crisis and
more
Illinois
schoolchildren fail to receive a high-quality education.
The good news is that
momentum for statewide education reform is building. On Aug. 12, the Metropolitan
Mayors Caucus called education funding and accountability reform its “top
public priority,” marking the first time the region’s 272 mayors have issued a
unified statement on the need to
fix
Illinois’ broken public education
system.
Days later, on Aug. 16, the Illinois Senate Education
Committee held a public hearing on school-funding reform legislation. House Bill
750 “sets the right direction” for statewide education reform, but does not
represent the only solution, according to Sean Noble of Voices for Illinois
Children. Noble spoke at the hearing on behalf of A+ Illinois
for comprehensive school funding and quality
reform.
“This bill should definitely be
on the table for discussion. If legislators and the governor don’t like it, they
should offer solutions they do like to get the job done for children,” Noble
said. “We look for
Illinois
leaders to live up to their promises
to make education a top priority for our state.”
During the back-to-school
season, A+ Illinois and its grassroots supporters will mail tens of thousands of
postcards and place billboard, radio and newspaper ads, plus host a flurry of
activities to draw attention to the urgent need for comprehensive reform,
including “Take Your Legislator Back to School” events. Concerned members of
several school communities will show legislators firsthand how the lack of state
funding for education is depriving children of the basics needed to
succeed.
For details on these and other
upcoming events, visit
www.aplusillinois.org
.
MPC Contact: MarySue Barrett,
President
312.863.6001 or msbarrett@metroplanning.org
Contact: Sean Noble, Senior
Policy Associate, Voices for
Illinois
Children
312.516.5566 or snoble@voices4kids.org
MPC Presents New Model for Making Transportation Development Decisions
Simply maintaining the
Chicago
metropolitan region’s robust transportation
infrastructure is a complicated task: As the nation’s intermodal transportation
hub, northeastern
Illinois
boasts enough highways to circle the
globe a dozen times, the world’s busiest airport, the nation’s second largest
transit system, and the only convergence point for six major freight railroads.
Regional transportation decision
makers face tough choices about how best to invest taxpayers’ dollars to provide
better mobility and accessibility for all, protect our environment, and maintain
the region’s economic vitality. Considering the region’s rapid growth, if we
stick with the status quo, traffic congestion and other transportation problems
only stand to worsen.
Never before has the need for a
strong, streamlined regional planning and transportation agency been more
evident. The Northeastern Illinois Regional Transportation Task Force’s
recommendation to merge and strengthen the Northeastern Illinois Planning
Commission and Chicago Area Transportation Study is a needed step, according to
MarySue Barrett, MPC president. However, if such a merger occurs, the newly
formed entity and other public agencies will need a framework for evaluating
regionally significant transportation proposals. Indeed, such criteria are
desperately needed
now
, as
northeastern
Illinois
recently adopted a 2030
transportation plan with project recommendations totaling $73 billion – but
anticipated funding coming up short at only $61 billion.
The Metropolitan Planning Council is offering its Transportation Investment Criteria as a sound basis
for a set of criteria to be adopted by the region’s improved regional
planning agency. MPC has used its criteria to evaluate regionally significant
projects such as the I-355 extension and urges their adoption by the Illinois
Department of Transportation, Illinois Toll Highway Authority and the 102 counties
that make
up
Illinois.
“Maintaining a
strong transportation network, one that efficiently moves people and goods, is vital
to the region’s economic health,”
said
Karyn
Romano, MPC transportation director. “The Transportation
Investment Criteria offer guidelines to ensure that transportation leaders make
the best decisions about our limited resources.”
To read the full Transportation
Investment Criteria, including a case study on the proposed extension of I-355,
visit
www.metroplanning.org
.
MPC Contact: Karyn Romano, Transportation Director
312.863.6005 or kromano@metroplanning.org
Campaign for Sensible Growth Releases New Planning Workbook
“This development will ruin my
property value and destroy the quality of life we hold near and dear in this
community.”
“We don’t need anymore drug
stores/condominiums/fast food restaurants, etc.”
“This community doesn’t need
anymore development, period.”
Sound familiar? Any reporter who
has covered his or her share of community development stories would agree that
these and other arguments play like broken records at public hearings across the
nation.
To foster a more informed and open dialogue between local
decision makers and developers in Chicagoland, and to promote sensible growth
techniques, the Campaign
for Sensible Growth
,
Metropolitan Mayors Caucus and Metropolitan Planning Council collaborated to
produce a new workbook,
Sensible Tools
for Healthy Communities: A Decision Making Workbook for Local Officials,
Developers, and Community Leaders
.
The workbook provides a list of
sensible growth techniques and principles, including the caucus’ Housing
Endorsement Criteria; questions to help officials evaluate requests for five
types of development that typically trigger public hearings; and suggestions for
improving projects so that they meet community objectives and better achieve
sensible growth outcomes.
At the request of
local
municipalities, Ellen
Shubart,
campaign manager for the Campaign for Sensible Growth, will be taking the book
“on the road” in coming months, hosting interactive training sessions to help
people get the most out of the workbook.
“Now more than ever, it is vital
to the health of the region that communities make informed decisions about
sensible growth,” said Shubart. “We want people to use this workbook to help
them advance their vision in the face of new development proposals.”
The 66-page workbook – which
also makes a great newsroom resource – is available as a PDF download at
www.growingsensibly.org/sensibletools
.
You may also request a hard copy from
Ellen Shubart
.
MPC Contact: Ellen Shubart, Manager, Campaign for Sensible Growth
312.863.6009 or
eshubart@metroplanning.org
Contact: Beth Dever, Housing
Director, Metropolitan Mayors Caucus
312.201.4507 or beth.dever@mayorscaucus.org
MPC Forum Highlights Importance of Community Open Space in CHA Plan
Baseball diamonds and soccer
fields. Youth clubs and senior centers. Tot lots and dog parks.
These are the places where people gather
to play, create, unwind – the places where strangers become neighbors, and
communities are formed.
The Metropolitan Planning
Council (MPC) hosted a forum Aug. 25 titled “Community Space and Stability:
Parks, Community Centers and Recreational Facilities.” At the forum, a panel of
speakers discussed the vital role that open space, community centers and
recreational facilities will play in the success of the Chicago Housing
Authority’s (CHA) new mixed-income neighborhoods being developed as part of its
Plan for Transformation.
Indeed, the world’s safest,
friendliest, healthiest neighborhoods feature attractive parks, centers, and
squares that anchor community activities. However, simply building these places
isn’t enough. Careful planning, design, management and programming are needed
for a community to make the most of its shared space, panelists at the forum
agreed.
Perhaps most importantly,
community input is necessary in shaping the final product.
Chicago
native Lawrence Vale,
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Urban Studies and Planning chair and a panelist at the
event, shared a quote with the audience from a
Boston
mixed-income housing resident who echoed
the sentiments of many CHA residents: “The community is not interested in being
planned for; the community is interested in planning.”
The event was presented as part of MPC’s ongoing 2004
“Building Successful Mixed-Income Communities” Forums. Upcoming forums will
explore quality education, community development and other topics. Check MPC’s
Web site, www.metroplanning.org
, for details.
MPC Contact: Roberto Requejo,
Housing Associate
312.863.6015 or rrequejo@metroplanning.org
Contact: Maria N. Saldana,
President, Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners
312.630.2002 or maria.saldana@ramirezco.com