Yesterday's Tribune has a feature story about the educational spending gap in Illinois. It seems things have never been worse:

At the two extremes, the tiny Rondout elementary district in Lake County spent $23,799 per pupil in 2003-04, compared with $4,438 spent by Central School District 51, a grade school district in Tazewell County in the middle of the state.

That's an almost $20,000 difference between two school districts in the same state. As I have discussed before, these disparities are caused by the reliance on property taxes for school funding. The higher the property values in a district, the more money the schools will receive, and vise versa.

While we are fortunate in this area to have decent funding for our schools, it is true the rural (usually consolidated) districts, and urban (predominantly minority) districts in Illinois are the ones who suffer. In other words, this isn't a race issue: it is a class issue.

So what to do? I came out in support of Sen. Winkel's proposal to increase income taxes and decrease property taxes with the purpose of leveling the education funding playing field. This proposal was killed in Springfield sometime last spring, with much ado made about the moderate tax increases that the suburban homeowners would incur. Apparently, few legislators have the sack required to take on the suburban power base.

What we need in this state is leadership. It is not acceptable to continue to support a system that is so dramatically unfair. Unfortunately, leadership seems to be in short supply these days.

So gear up for another year of inequality, Illinois style.