Blazing New Trails - Connexions

286 CRITICAL ISSUES IN SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT
Much of the research was conducted shortly after the tax cap legislation was approved;
therefore, significant differences may not have not observed in these earlier studies.
Additional research was needed to further investigate any relationship between property tax
limitations and student achievement on a larger scale. In a study of all Unit School Districts in
Illinois, there was no significant relationship between PTELL and ISAT test scores for each of
three years studied including FY 2006, FY 2007, and FY 2008 (Manahan, 2009). The results
of the study did suggest that there was a significant relationship between PTELL and student
achievement in terms of the three year trend differences over this timeframe.
The case study provided a deeper understanding of the experience of school leaders
under PTELL and of the impact of PTELL on school revenues in tax-capped school districts
in Central Illinois. Earlier research focused on school districts in the six affluent counties
upon which the Illinois General assembly imposed PTELL (Downes, Dye & McGuire, 1998;
Dye & McGuire, 1997; Hylbert, 2001; Rudow, 2003). The lack of focus on the remaining 33
counties of Illinois, particularly in the counties of Central and Southern regions of the state,
created a void in the full understanding of PTELL. School districts in those counties typically
are not as fortunate with the same level of property values (Illinois Local Educational Agency
Retrieval Network, 2005) and do not experience the same level of population growth (Illinois
Statistical Abstract, 2003) as the school districts in Northern Illinois. This gap suggested the
overriding question: Is the experience with PTELL in low-growth and lower property value
counties the same as in higher growth, higher property value counties?
CASE STUDY OF SELECTED DISTRICTS UNDER PTELL
The researchers entered the study with the twin purpose of developing a deeper
understanding of the experiences of school district leaders across Central Illinois area with
PTELL and to learn what administrators do in response to what they perceive as the impact
PTELL has on their districts. Previous studies examined PTELL through various quantitative
designs that yielded information on student achievement in school systems under the tax
limitation (Downes, Dye & McGuire, 1998), fiscal effects of PTELL on taxing bodies (Dye &
McGuire; Dye, McGuire & McMillen, 2005), and the state of selected financial characteristics
and leader perceptions in school districts under PTELL (Hylbert, 2001; Rudow, 2003). These
earlier studies pulled data primarily from taxing bodies in the affluent, urban, and growing
counties of Cook and the collar counties. The researchers sought to provide a deeper
understanding of the tax limitation law by probing the experiences of school leaders in
Central Illinois through a case study approach and to convey the experience of leading school
districts under PTELL through the feelings, perceptions, and beliefs of those individuals who
fill school leadership roles.
METHODOLOGY
Six school districts were selected from the 16 PTELL adopter counties in Central
Illinois, which was operationally defined for this study as the counties lying wholly south of
Interstate 80 and north of Interstate 70. The researcher selected districts that were under
PTELL at least 5 years since similar revenue limitations generally become more constraining
over a period of time (Cox & Lowery, 1990; Dye, McGuire & McMillen, 2005). All six of the
districts eventually selected were in five counties that adopted PTELL at least 7 years prior to
the start of the study (Illinois Department of Revenue, 2009). Table 1 provides a listing and
descriptions of the six participating school districts.