An Illinois House appropriations chairwoman is displeased with the work the Illinois State Board of Education turned in for its budget proposal.

The board, which was almost entirely replaced last month, as was the superintendent, scrapped the previous board’s big ask in favor of what State Rep. Rita Mayfield (D-Waukegan) said was a “rubber-stamp” of the governor’s budget proposal.

“It doesn’t appear like a lot of thought to that rubber-stamping of the governor’s budget,” Mayfield added. “This is concerning, because we are dealing with our children.”

“We feel like the budget that Gov. Pritzker put forth is very reasonable, given where we are as a state, and the budget that was put forth by the board that preceded us was not,” said the new board chairman, Darren Reisberg.

On another topic, State Rep. Will Davis (D-Homewood) (pictured) suggested a new focus in trying to remedy the state’s teacher shortage: “A lot of great ideas are resting in a lot of the colleges of education across the country, and they’re just frustrated that they don’t have a mechanism to get that out.”

A hint, he said, would be to bypass the president’s office and get “down into the guts” of the colleges.

ISBE displeases chair with budget