The Council of State Governments (CSG), which is a state appropriations funded organization, is pushing for states to join their Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children. CSG is pushing the Compact to address perceived inequities facing school children of military parents when they are required to relocate across state lines. Specifically, it would allow the laws of the "sending" state to apply to transferring students from military families in the schools of the "receiving" state for such policies as graduation requirements, Advance Placements (AP), and age of student enrollment.

The Compact creates the "Interstate Commission on Educational Opportunity for Military Children," which will police the provisions included in the Compact. Each member state will have one voting member. Among the powers given to the Commission is; the ability to "levy on and collect an annual assessment from each member state to cover the cost of the operations and activities of the Interstate Commission," promulgate rules, and enforce compliance with Compact provisions.

The Illinois Statewide School Management Alliance has several major concerns with the Compact:

• The Compact language gives the Commission significant authority to levy and collect unlimited assessments paid by member states, such as any funding needed to sue a non-compliant state.
• Requires "receiving" schools to "facilitate the opportunity for transitioning military children's inclusion in extracurricular activities, regardless of application deadlines…" The courts will most likely be called upon to decide whether a school made a reasonable attempt to facilitate opportunity.
• The first paragraph in the CSGs rationale highlights inflexible administrative and bureaucratic practices. This Compact moves these practices away from individual school districts and to a bureaucratic level two administrative levels above the local school district.
• An effort to level the playing field may penalize proactive districts and establish a ceiling for efforts instead of a minimum standard. This may also place an unsupportable burden on smaller districts that may not have the resources or personnel and finances to meet what could become burdensome regulations.
• This Compact establishes a one size fits all regulatory environment that takes away the individualism and creativity of existing school districts. While this may be appealing to the military, it is anathema to the spirit of local control which in most cases has worked very well as a model for education in our country.
• This Compact will lead to an undefined number of unfunded mandates for our local school districts.
• This Compact will create two additional levels of bureaucracy that will need to be funded and establishes a top-down regulatory environment that is once again contrary to the local control that has worked so well in most cases.

The Compact usurps the ability of locally elected school board members to decide what is in the best interest for their district and their students and usurps State authority to establish guidelines and regulations for all the students of Illinois. The Alliance is interested in opportunity for and the success of all children, including schoolchildren of military parents and agrees that it is unfair to penalize students entering our districts due to a relocation of their parents by the military. While opposing the Compact, the Alliance is willing to discuss individual pieces of legislation targeted at particular difficulties military students are facing in Illinois schools.

This analysis was created by the Governmental Relations Department of the Illinois Association of School Boards.