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 St. Mary's Newsletter
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Hello all: As long promised, our first action alert of the year has arrived! The Governor is currently working on his budget recommendation for next fiscal year. Our challenge is to convince him to include funding for the Textbook Loan Program in his budget proposal. Accordingly, I am asking that you, your school's staff, your parents and your parishioners all take time to write the Governor with this important request. A sample letter (with mailing address) is attached, but if at all possible, I urge you to personalize your letter. Talking specifically about what Textbook Loan has provided your school will be especially helpful. The Governor will be preparing his budget for the remainder of the month and perhaps into March, so there is plenty of time to get the word out, gather support and flood his office with letters. Please do whatever you can to encourage broad participation. A high level of sustained grassroots engagement is essential to achieving our goals. The sample letter and this information can also be found on our web site. Please contact me if you have any further questions. The next three months will be busy, but with your help, we can succeed! Zach Wichmann Catholic Conference of Illinois Associate Director for Education 217-528-9200 * If you no longer wish to receive legislative updates, please reply and request removal from the list. Thank you. February __, 2010 Governor Pat Quinn Office of the Governor 207 State House Springfield, IL 62706 Dear Governor Quinn: I write today urging you to propose funding for the Illinois Textbook Loan Program in your Fiscal Year 2011 budget. The Textbook Loan Program has been in operation since 1975. Its purpose is to provide secular textbooks, learning materials and instructional computer software to public and nonpublic school students grades K-12. Although most of the program’s funding goes to public schools, Catholic schools have long depended on this program and have used the benefit to continually update math, science, and reading textbooks, as well as to purchase new instructional software for technology labs. Students cannot learn or succeed without effective and up-to-date learning materials, and this program has helped ensure those materials are present in ALL schools. According to the Illinois State Board of Education’s (ISBE) published analysis, the Textbook Loan program impacts 2.1 million students and 164,000 educators. In Fiscal Year 2009, the program provided 849,214 instructional items to pupils in grades 7 through 12. There are not many grant programs in ISBE’s budget that have had as far-reaching an impact for as long a time. Obviously, the state’s fiscal condition is dire. We understand funding cuts must be endured in these difficult times. However, when a long-standing program with a proven track record faces elimination, Illinois’ entire education system suffers. It also problematic when programs serving both public and nonpublic schools – such as Textbook Loan – are subject to disproportionate cuts in the state’s education budget. ISBE’s strategic goals cite service to "all students" and "all schools." Unfortunately, last year’s budget cut the Textbook Loan completely and failed to reflect similar concern. We urge you to recommend that ISBE’s budget restore funding at the Fiscal Year 2007 level of $29.1 million. Such a recommendation recognizes the current fiscal condition of the state but also makes some attempt to meet the state’s obligation to provide sound, up-to-date instructional materials to all children. Catholic schools provide great savings to the state: $1.5 billion annually. We do not deserve to lose the limited state support given back. Thank you for your attention and support. Sincerely,
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