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COOK COUNTY RECORD

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Teachers unions using COVID to promote state bureaucratic power grab over private schools

Opinion
Illinois mussman michelle

State Rep. Michelle Mussman, D-Schaumburg, sponsored HB2789 in the Illinois House of Representatives. The measure was approved and now awaits action in the Illinois state Senate. | ILGA

Leftists here in Illinois have been heeding the opportunistic control freak Rahm Emanuel’s instruction:

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

Most Illinoisans going about their business, working hard and raising children, have heard nothing about the power grab underway right now by leftist swamp creatures in Springfield. As citizens continue to battle governmental authorities—both elected and unelected—who have used the pandemic crisis to usurp our rights, swampsters in Springfield are busy passing legislation to ensure the government will have such ill-gotten powers in perpetuity.

On Thursday, April 22, the Illinois House passed along party lines HB 2789, an authoritarian proposal sponsored by State Rep. Michelle Mussman (D-Schaumburg). This bill adds an amendment to an existing law, which will grant sole authority to determine whether, when, and under what conditions public and private schools can return to in-person instruction in the event of a public health crisis to the Department of Public Health Powers and Duties.

The Department shall establish requirements by rule for providing in-person instruction at nonpublic schools and public schools that include, but are not limited to, personal protective equipment, cleaning and hygiene, social distancing, occupancy limits, symptom screening, and on-site isolation protocols and shall disseminate information about those requirements to nonpublic schools and public schools with the assistance of the Illinois State Board of Education. The authority to enforce the rules adopted pursuant to this Section lies with the Department and local departments of public health.

If upon investigation, a school is found to be in violation of the rules adopted under this Section, the Department has the authority to take the appropriate action necessary to promote the health or protect the safety of students, staff, and the public, including, but not limited to, closure of a classroom, gym, library, lunch room, or any other school space until such time that the Department determines that the violation or violations have been remedied. Nothing in this Section limits the authority or requirements of the Department or local public health departments.

Don’t be deceived into believing this bill has anything to do with public health and the welfare of children. This bill is solely about the government expanding and retaining control over the lives of citizens.

It is neither the Illinois State Board of Education nor the Illinois Department of Public Health that is lobbying for this bill. The pressure for this dangerous bill is coming from the powerful teachers’ union, the Illinois Education Association (IEA), an affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA).  The IEA-NEA, with its insatiable appetite for power, is “demanding” that lawmakers pass this bill.

We have seen federal and state governments issue mandates about masking and school closures for which there is no scientific support. And we have seen state lawmakers genuflect to teachers’ unions that have been making demands wholly irrelevant to COVID-19 - demands that harm children.

Local elected school boards, accountable to the people who elect them, must retain control over decisions related to their communities. And neither Springfield swampsters, nor an Illinois governor, nor the Department of Public Health, nor the appointed and politicized Illinois State Board of Education should have unrestricted authority to control how private schools respond to public health crises.

Why does any Illinoisan think the bureaucrats in corrupt Illinois government (who, by the way, deny school choice to Illinoisans, including disadvantaged children in lousy, dangerous Chicago schools) have the best interests of children in mind, or know better how to protect them than do parents and local school districts?

Instead of granting more power to the corrupt, inefficient, feckless, and power-hungry government, let’s starve it.

This bill passed the Illinois House by a partisan vote of 70-42. The legislation now moves to the Illinois Senate for consideration, where it is sponsored by State Sen. Christopher Belt (D-East St. Louis).

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