CITY HALL — An alderman who has received significant campaign contributions from charter-school supporters has halted the advancement of a resolution calling for a statewide moratorium on charters and signed by 42 aldermen.
Ald. Will Burns (4th) was recently named chairman of the Education Committee after the municipal election earlier this year. The resolution, sponsored last month by Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) and immediately signed by 42 aldermen, was not on the agenda for Monday's meeting of the Education Committee.
According to state campaign-disclosure reports, Burns has received significant campaign contributions from supporters of charter schools, including $2,500 from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools' Political Action Committee in January ahead of the election, as well as $500 from Democrats for Education Reform, a prominent pro-charter group.
Named by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to head the Education Committee after former Ald. Latasha Thomas (17th) declined to seek re-election, Burns also received more than $50,000 in the first quarter of the year from the mayor's Chicago for Rahm Emanuel political fund.
Burns refused to comment on the resolution ahead of Monday's meeting and said he has been consistent in his support for charter schools throughout his political career going back to his tenure in the state House of Representatives. He said he has been a "consistent" supporter of "school choice."
Sawyer, who has previously seen a reform ordinance on privatization locked up in the Rules Committee, was philosophical about the resolution not being on the Education Committee agenda Monday.
"Let's just say I wasn't overly surprised," Sawyer said. "If it may not get heard, I'm happy I still got 41 other colleagues to indicate the importance of us looking at that.
"Even though it's not on the agenda, I think their voices have been heard," Sawyer added. "We're just looking for some common-sense resolution to what's going on throughout the city."
Charters insist they're offering school choice to students and parents, but defenders of traditional neighborhood schools maintain that, with enrollment-based budgeting, charters siphon funding from those schools and pit the two sides against one another.
Several speakers cited Sawyer's resolution at Chicago Public Schools hearings on proposed new charters last week.
Sawyer held out hope the measure might advance in the City Council ahead of the Board of Education meeting later this month, when the board is expected to vote on seven proposed new charters.
"We still maintain that it's an important issue and should be discussed, and it's already out in the open," Sawyer said.
Asked if Burns' support from charters had a role in the delay, Sawyer declined comment, saying, "You make your own assertions on that."
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