Jim Broadway

Publisher: Jim Broadway

The State School News Service mission is to shine a light on state the policy process affecting every school district and educator, every parent and child, in Illinois.

As public polls show, education is our citizens' top priority, and our legislators will respond in 2007-2008 with hundreds of bills to reform or improve our nearly 900 school districts.

Luckily, most will wind up in the trash heap. But we report them all, at each twist and turn along the way. We tell you a bill's intended impact, its pros and cons and prospects. We follow each bill from start to finish, providing when we can an historical context for major issues of school policy.

SSNS Staff

Sarah Payne (U. of I. at Springfield, 2004, B.A. Communication), has been with SSNS since 2004. A writer of rare clarity, candor and passion for public education, Sarah is also our Business Manager. When you call the office, it is her voice you're likely to hear.

We are proud of the fact that SSNS has also been privileged to help develop a number of young aspiring journalists, socially engaged citizens and future leaders. Most of the time, we have an intern or a graduate student on our staff, part-time. Currently, we are pleased to have Hannah Douglas, a Lanphier High School student in Springfield, writing for us and helping maintain some site pages.

Our young writers  learn communication skills that,we think will benefit them in the future, and they help us maintain a connection with the community of future leaders.

Sarah Payne
SSNS Business Manager

The process: As Marshall McLuhan told us, "the medium is the message." The medium of democracy is our government, the policymakers who turn public will into public policy. More than most publications, we focus on processes of government as well as on the laws that are enacted, the outcomes of those processes.

We do this because policy ideas come and go but processes used in shaping policy affect our schools and our children and all of us as parents and taxpayers - for years to come.

It is like education. An educator's career will span only three generations of students' journeys from Play Doh to Pomp and Circumstance.

In the same decades, the educator's profession may be "reformed" a half dozen times or more, as policy makers grapple with the gap between public expectation and reality.

Stability is an elusive goal in education.

In the legislature, the impulse to "do something" can defeat the goal of doing something well. Consequently, a lot of bad seeds are sown, and many of them sprout.

Unfortunately, this often leads to a loss of local control, to the imposition of state mandates that may have no beneficial effect at all, but usually require a diversion of local districts' precious resources away from the task of education.

Not all bad ideas wither, but we believe the free flow of information challenges those who wield power as if it were divinely bestowed and helps to promote positive school policy while exposing political pander for what it is.

SSNS exists as an instrument for that free flow of information and, when appropriate, for those challenges to authority.

Knowing the source is key. Every journalist is aware that the credibility of the source is what gives the story its credibility. The same is true for you SSNS readers.

The young people at SSNS  give us the energy and the optimism that we can make a difference and confidence that ours is a worthy mission. I learn from them every day.

My own background is more checkered.

I was a reporter and managing editor of a daily newspaper, the Edwardsville Intelligencer, in the 1970s and an editor for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat from 1978 to 1984. It was with the Globe that I arrived in Springfield as Illinois Capitol Bureau Chief in 1981, and I've been watching Illinois policy makers for a living, and for the amusement, ever since.

When the Globe folded in 1984, I joined the Illinois Hospital Association as Vice President for government and public relations. That's right, I became a lobbyist. I even ran a government relations consulting activity of my own before curtailing my lobbying business in1998. I've been clean for nearly a decade, now.

Along the way, I served as part-time Illinois Media Liaison from 1991-96 for U.S. Sen. Paul Simon. He was my friend and mentor, my model for all that is excellent in government and public service, for more than thirty years.

Many disparage government these days, but not at SSNS. It is the instrument of our democracy, and we know, from the example of Paul Simon and others, that public service can be practiced honorably in the citizen's interest.

But for democracy to work well, citizens must be informed. That is what we are all about.