News Progress

•September 20, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

American football is at its zenith in terms of money and hype. The game dominates the airwaves on weekends, and now throughout the week as well. Big college programs are building Taj mahal-like locker rooms for their pampered, but unpaid, players. Katy, TX (pop. 14,000) just opened a $72 million high school stadium!

But under the glitzy surface, the game is apparently dying. Moms are killing it.

My local rural high school, long an area football powerhouse, mustered only seven freshmen for the team this fall. No more freshman football games. The local JFL program for peewees is way down as well.

Numbers turning out for football are down overall across the country in recent years, except in the South.

I come not to bury football, but to assess what is going on. Indeed, I couldn’t wait for the recent NFL Bears-Falcons opener. Watching a wide receiver leap improbably high to snag a 40-yard pass is indeed poetry in motion. Read More

•September 6, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

As I write this, the Illinois House has just passed a school funding bill that includes $75 million in first-ever state tax credits for scholarships for youngsters to attend nonpublic schools in our state.

The proposal is yet another declaration of lack of confidence in Illinois public schools.

I am a believer in public schools as the historic bedrock upon which our nation has been built. I also believe in competition as a tool for enhancing quality.

Yet public schools have been held suspect in various quarters since the mid-1800s.

Catholic schools became especially important to Irish Catholic immigrants because of intense discrimination against these newcomers from Yankees, who controlled the public schools.

By the 1960s, however, many of Catholic parish schools began to struggle because they were losing their low-cost teaching-religious sisters and brothers.  Read More

•August 30, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

There is an old saying that only six people in Illinois understand the state’s school funding formula, and they can’t fly on the same plane. So, now that the topic is in the news, let’s stand back and try to grasp the underlying fundamentals of school finance, which are all about money and politics, that is, the struggle over who gets what.

Illinois schools overall spend more per pupil statewide than the national average, and much more than neighboring states. According to Governing magazine, in 2014 Illinois spent $13,077 per pupil versus $9,548 in Indiana; $10,668 in Iowa, and $11,186 in Wisconsin.

The problem for Illinois is that we rely heavily on the local property tax to fund our 800+ school districts. As a result, property-rich districts on the North Shore just above Chicago spend as much as $24,000 per student, without need for any state dollars, while my rural district in Stark County spends less than half that. In Iowa, by contrast, per pupil funding varies little, maybe 3 percent, from district to district.

Teacher salaries account for much of the difference in district spending: The average teacher salary in Stark is $48,500; New Trier, $110,000. Read More

•August 16, 2017•

By Trudy Lieberman,
Rural Health News Service

What should you expect now that the drive to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act appears dead – at least for the moment? Given how legislation gets made in Washington, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some elements of the repeal and replace bill surface again, possibly tacked onto what’s known as must-have legislation.

All that, though, is speculation at this point! What’s more important to millions of families who must buy health insurance for next year is how much will it cost and what will it cover?

It’s safe to say that Obamacare will be around for awhile meaning that people without employer coverage, Medicare, or Medicaid will have to buy their insurance through their state’s shopping exchange or choose a policy insurers may be selling in the individual market.

At the moment the state exchanges are fraught with uncertainty that will affect what your family will have to pay. Insurance companies are not sure whether the federal government will enforce Obamacare’s individual mandate. Read More

•August 2, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

How long has it been since you heard anyone say a good word about Illinois?

Oh, I recall a decade ago when Thomas Friedman, in his bestseller The World Is Flat, waxed enthusiastically about how the world-wide web browser was basically created at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Tom was impressed, as he should have been.

And I have seen positive stories in the national news more recently about how downtown Chicago is a mecca for young professionals, their creativity and energy, and all the great restaurants and music that brings in its wake.

But other than that, precious little. Read More