SPRINGFIELD, Ill.  – Illinois is going “absolutely backward” in regards to education.

That’s the synopsis Illinois Policy Institute Vice President Ted Dabrowski provided Watchdog.org about the recent vote in the Illinois state House to ban virtual charter schools from the state for three years.

A one-year ban on virtual schools expired just recently.

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Never mind that there are probably many youngsters throughout the state in unique circumstances who would probably thrive and graduate if they could enroll in virtual schools.

Virtual schools are typically not union schools, so the union tools that run Illinois government want no part of them.

“It’s an amazing story about what they want to do here in Illinois. We are going absolutely backward in terms of education reform and education innovation,” said Dabrowski, who pointed directly at teachers unions and others in the education establishment as the problem.

“The school districts in Illinois have massive power. We have 868 school districts, the most in the nation, and they have massive power to keep out charter schools. They want to keep out competition, and so the unions and a couple legislators … have worked very hard to block reforms,” he added.

“There’s a lot of politics as usual.”

The virtual school ban is among a flurry of anti-charter school legislation making its way through the Illinois legislature that has charter parents and supporters really ticked off. About 1,500 parents and students from Illinois charter schools trekked to Springfield this week to get loud and let lawmakers know they don’t want more restrictions.

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Current proposals include bills to repeal the commission overseeing charter school licensing appeals, end centralized lotteries for charters, limit compensation for charter teachers, and an effort to impose the same type of bureaucratic red tape dragging down traditional schools on charter schools, the Chicago Sun Times reports.

To probably nobody’s surprise, the Chicago Teachers Union helped to craft the cyber school legislation. The CTU has waged a campaign to limit charter school growth as an increasing number of Chicago students flee the city’s failing public schools.

The anti-charter school movement in Illinois is part of a much broader union-led effort to attack non-government schools across the nation. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was elected with the help of CTU’s sister union – the United Federation of Teachers – has attacked charter school operators by rejecting co-location agreements in the Big Apple, for instance.

But it’s clear charter school parents and supporters aren’t taking the attacks lightly. Thousands recently flooded the New York capitol lawn in Albany to counter the union influence. It was the same story in Springfield this Tuesday, when roughly 1,500 supporters came out to have their voices heard.

Hopefully at least some lawmakers are listening.

“It’s good for you to be here, it’s good for people to see that charter parents, charter students are engaged and not willing to give up their schools and not willing to give up this fight,” Illinois state Rep. Christian Mitchell, D-Chicago, told those at the rally, according to the Sun Times.

“So understand what you are doing here today is very important.”