Emanuel To Rauner: Keep Your School Funding Promise
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel pledged to hold Gov. Bruce Rauner to his promise to increase education funding, now that the Republican venture capitalist has been sworn in as governor.
Though Rauner already has warned that the state's budget mess is worse than he first thought, Emanuel cautioned against any cuts he believes would be harmful to public schools.
Emanuel said there's nothing more important the new governor could do than fulfill his pledge to increase state funding for public schools. During his campaign for governor, Rauner repeatedly said education was his top priority, and he would significantly increase state funding for education.
As for sacrifices Rauner has said Illinois residents must make to pay for the state's pension debt and day-to-day spending, the mayor said, "he has to – in the next, I think, 30-some days – lay out his budget.
"I'll be clear about the importance of Chicago to the health of the state of Illinois, and that none of the reforms that he makes, although they will be necessary, can be done on the backs of the children and the families that make up the city of Chicago," he added.
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Emanuel said Chicago's expansion of preschool programs shows public funds can be put to good use.
"We went from 24 percent of our kids kindergarten-ready to 47 percent of our kids in a single year, showing the investments have tremendous payoff. I want to see continued investment in that area of educational funding," he said.
The mayor spoke Tuesday morning at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center, a public high school on the North Side, where he announced a partnership with the Illinois Institute of Technology and Exelon to help more high school students earn college credit.
