Fight for Illinois

Helping Illinoisans opposed to punitive taxation, waste and fraud, failing schools, corruption and more. Formerly @ilpoliski

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

Last night we launched Fight for Illinois, a new nonprofit dedicated to championing grassroots pressure against the failed policies of this state.

To help unite Illinoisans across the state, Fight for Illinois has developed a free app that puts all the facts and networking tools that reformers need right at their fingertips.

The app comes just in time to be a resource for reform candidates up and down the ballot in November and the Chicago and local elections early next year. Download here: https://t.co/nQIIJ0xVCb

More details in the Press Release below.
Join us at https://t.co/iBiz8UXjVa

#twill @ILGOP @illinoisdems

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

Here are the neighboring state comparisons – average price for gasoline yesterday. AAA is the source.

Illinois prices are far higher than those of its neighbors. Illinois is typically higher than Michigan, but not yesterday.

Illinois' price differential is driven largely by higher gasoline taxes. We've ranked 2nd- or 3rd-highest for gasoline taxes in the nation ever since Pritzker and the legislature doubled the motor fuel tax and then set it to rise automatically with inflation each year.

Add these taxes to our nation's-highest property taxes and Illinoisans are getting a whipping.

#twill @ILGOP @GovPritzker

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

@Photo_Mayor Let’s stay in Indiana. Braun, their governor, came in and lowered gas taxes by executive order. 60 cents. And he extended the time of the cuts.

Braun took care of his residents. Now the difference is nearly a dollar.

And you defend Pritzker and Illinois’ gas taxes policy.

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

Fascinating. Illinois' gas prices today are nearly 90 cents higher than Indiana's.

Illinois: $4.91 per gallon
Indiana: $4.03 per gallon

A huge part of the difference is higher gasoline taxes in Illinois. Pritzker and the legislature doubled the motor fuel tax in 2019, and also made sure that the tax rises with inflation each year.

Illinoisans also pay a sales tax on gasoline (Illinois is one of just a handful of states with a sales tax on gasoline). Unsurprisingly, as gas prices go up, the taxes go up.

Grossly inflated gasoline prices. Just one more reason we need political change.

#twill @ILGOP @GovPritzker

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

Ha! Where is Illinois' gas tax suspension?

And what about Missouri's gas prices. Cheaper than Illinois' by 72 cents.
And what about Kentucky's gas prices. Cheaper by 72 cents.
And what about Iowa's gas prices. Cheaper by 53 cents.
Wisconsin, cheaper by 42 cents.

What are you defending? We've been running anywhere from 20 cents to a dollar higher for a long time. We have a taxing problem. We have the 2nd- or 3rd-highest gas taxes in the country. That's simply it.

#twill @ILGOP @GovPritzker

[Nicki Neily @nickineily]

@ilpoliski Lowering the bar and celebrating higher scores isn’t a true reflection of student success. It’s an education system redefining what success means instead of fixing what’s failing.

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

If not enough Illinois kids are reading at grade level, well then, lower the standards!

That’s exactly what Gov. Pritzker and his State Board of Education appointees voted for last year. They lowered reading and math standards significantly.

Unsurprisingly, more kids are suddenly doing better on reading and math tests. It’s Pritzker’s way of hiding how his education policies – and those of the teachers unions – are hurting Illinois children.

On the national standardized tests (NAEP) in 2024, just 13% of 4th-grade black children in Illinois could read at grade level. It was only 11% for math. Latino scores weren’t much better.

Here’s what should change:
Spending statewide is now at nearly $25,000 per kid. That’s more than enough to do the following:
1. Return standards to where they were and hold teachers, administrators and parents accountable.
2. Get back to phonics, phonics, phonics.
3. Don’t let kids go to the 4th grade unless they’re at the 3rd-grade level. Test young children throughout the year to stay on target, and to catch those students falling behind.
4. Stop teaching DEI, identitarian politics and social justice. Focus on the three Rs and science. Re-train and re-focus teachers on the core subjects.
5. Roll back the teachers union’s collective bargaining powers to just salaries. End their strike powers.
6. Reform pensions going forward so that they stop draining money from classrooms.
7. Enact universal school choice across the state. Education Savings Accounts for all.

Importantly, there’s a nasty negative correlation between teacher union powers and literacy. That’s why it’s so important to strip Illinois unions of their extreme powers – among the strongest, and maybe the strongest, in the country.

It’s time to fight back.

#twill @govpritzker #Illinois @ILGOP

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

There’s no bigger promoter of school choice for Chicago than the failed schools in the list below.

Once big, robust schools, no parent wants to send their kids there anymore. They’re nearly empty. Families have fled.

And what few kids remain aren’t being taught to read or do math. Check out Douglass, Raby and Austin. Zero kids there could read at grade level in 2024. It’s a tragedy.

Then there’s the cost of keeping these schools open. The 20 emptiest schools have an average student-to-staff ratio of just 4 to 1. Costs run as high as $55,000 per student.

Property taxes continue to soar to prop up the Chicago Teachers Union’s failures.

The solution:

Dramatically slash the powers of the CTU. For starters, limit their bargaining powers to just wages. No more right to strike.

Obsess about efficiency and accountability so that money is spent in the classroom – on literacy and numeracy.

Close down Chicago’s 100 emptiest schools, save hundreds of millions yearly. (Chicago’s 100th most empty school is at just 43% utilization.)

Enact universal school choice with Educational Savings Accounts of $10,000 to $15,000 per student.

Allow new private school operators – in demand as a result of school choice – to occupy the closed school buildings, preserving schools in Chicago’s communities.

Sound radical? What’s more radical is to perpetuate a system where just 21% of black students could read at grade level in 2024. A system that’s lost 25% of its enrollment – nearly 100,000 students – since 2010.

The solution is a paradigm shift, demanding a complex and difficult transition, but the current system has been an absolute failure for decades. It has to go.

#twill #Illinois @ILGOP @GovPritzker

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

Gov. Pritzker’s double standard:

For data centers, Pritzker says local communities should decide if they want one or not.

For solar farms, the state decides.

He went even further in August. He cancelled incentives and tax credits for data centers.

For solar projects, the massive taxpayer handouts keep flowing.

Local control is a fundamental right. It shouldn't be stripped because the governor has a cause he wants to push.

And the solar subsidies must end.

#twill @govpritzker @ilgop #illinois

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

A proposed solar farm less than 1.5 miles outside of Effingham city limits. Right near a school. An eyesore. Destroying productive farmland.

And subsidized by the state to the hilt – forced via surcharges in electric bills payable by the very residents who oppose the solar farm.

Just like Pritzker did with data centers, he needs to get rid of the tax credits and incentives for these solar projects that would never financially stand on their own.

And just like Pritzker says about data centers, it should be locals that decide whether they want such projects in their counties. Today those decisions are effectively top-down, state enforced mandates pushed by Pritzker.

Get rid of the subsidies. Get rid of the mandates. Return to local control, local decision making.

#twill @ILGOP @GovPritzker #effingham

https://t.co/5lCUGxFhbQ

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

@TheJeffBoyd Yes, sadly the state lowered reading and math standards last year, so now everything looks "better". I wrote about it here last year.

https://t.co/M5i85PIemh

#twill @wirepoints

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

At Chicago Public Schools, it’s move them along, pass them along.

Only 20% of students scored proficient on the SAT in 2024, yet more than 80% graduated.

Illinoisans pay $32,000 per student for this failed accountability…

Here’s what needs to happen to get back on track:
Roll back the CTU’s powers. No more strikes. Limit bargaining to salaries only.
Make labor negotiations public.
Bring back phonics with a vengeance.
End social promotion – kids can’t move to fourth grade if they’re not at grade level.
Close the near-empty schools where kids have no chance at an education.
Opt-in to the federal tax credit scholarship program.
Above all, enact Universal School Choice – Educational Savings Accounts for all children.

#twill @ILGOP @wttw

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

CG, since you bring up CPS and the many nearly-empty, failing schools, let me repost the data.

These schools are at anywhere from 3% to 22.5% capacity. Look at the percent of kids that can read at grade level. Tragic. In the three worst schools, not a single kid is proficient. Even worse, at Douglass the spend is $93K per kid.

Now throw in the spike in property taxes, the city budget holes and the corrupt management of the system...

Defend keeping these schools open if you can, but do it without the name calling.

#twill @ILGOP #chicago

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

Shuttered rest stops in Illinois. It’s emblematic of the way our politicians treat us.

On my way down to Effingham and Mattoon on I-57, two of the four rest stops were closed. On the way back north, three of the four were closed. The last one, Prairie View, has been closed for years.

We pay the nation’s highest property taxes.
The nation’s 2nd-highest gas taxes.
And now they’re hiking our tolls by a record 57%.

Punitive tax levels. Dismal services. Zero accountability.

#twill @ILGOP @govpritzker @IDOT_Illinois

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

I agree with you. But then shutter the rest stops fully and lower spending and taxes. Instead, many of the rest stops still have construction and service workers there…spending who knows how many 100s of millions or more.

Our government wants it both ways (of course, they do). It’s a jobs and spending program. Never mind the lousy service.

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

We have to get back to fighting for marriage and family.

In Chicago, 81% of black children were born to unwed mothers in 2023. It was 60% for Latino children.

That was one of my responses to Chicago Tonight on the upcoming changes to the federal Head Start program.

Two-parent black families have incomes of more than $94K, nearly triple the $34K that a single black mother with kids makes. Intact families result in children with more schooling, higher earnings, better jobs, better mental health, and eventually, more secure marriages of their own.

Billions for unaccountable government programs will do nothing until we refocus on the troubles of the American family.

#twill @ILGOP @wttw

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

@HarveyC25787539 That's absolutely true. It begins at home. Amen

But that doesn't absolve CPS. Collectively, we taxpayers fork out $32,000 a kid for the school system to teach Chicago children. By most measures – including literacy and numeracy – it's a big failure.

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

Just 13% of black 4th-grade CPS students read at grade level. It’s just 19% for Latino children. Despite spending $32,000 per kid.

We can fund all the Head Start programs we want, but if we can't figure out literacy in our schools, we are simply wasting money.

Here’s what needs to happen: Roll back the CTU’s powers. No more strikes. Limit bargaining to salaries only.
Make labor negotiations public.
Bring back phonics with a vengeance.
End social promotion – kids can’t move to fourth grade if they’re not at grade level.
Close the near-empty schools where kids have no chance at an education.
Opt-in to the federal tax credit scholarship program.
Above all, introduce Universal School Choice – Educational Savings Programs for all children.

#twill @ILGOP @wttw

[Fight for Illinois @Fight4Illinois]

1. Illinois remains the nation's worst-rated state in the country.

2. The City of Chicago is just one notch from junk and on the brink.

3. Chicago Public Schools is already junk-rated.

What do they all have in common?

One-party control.

Democrat mayors have run Chicago for 95 straight years.

Democrats have run the Cook County Board for 95 straight years.

Democrats have controlled the governor's office 19 of the last 23 years.

Democrats have controlled the House for 29 straight years and the Senate for 23 straight years.

It's obvious who owns the mess.

@ILGOP #twill #illinois @GovPritzker #chicago #cookcounty