Education

Today's NG:

Before voting unanimously to approve $2.3 million in cuts and revenue enhancements, several board members said they were satisfied the district has done that as well as it could.

The cuts also include: reductions in departmental budgets at the district level (not building budgets); the elimination of three director jobs and one special education administrator job; and the end of the extended-day program at Stratton Elementary School. The district also proposes selling land near Barkstall Elementary School and Dr. Howard Elementary School, and putting an energy savings program into place.

Discuss.

This happened last night, and the NG article has been up for a while, but I've had a slightly busy day:

Champaign school district Superintendent Arthur Culver got a one-year extension on his contract, in large part because of his work in helping the district successfully satisfy the requirements of its federal consent decree.

The school board evaluated Culver in closed session Tuesday night and voted 4-3 to extend his contract for an additional year, to June 30, 2014.

The three board members voting against the contract extension did so because they don't agree with having a contract extended beyond three years, not because of any dissatisfaction with the superintendent's performance, they said.

One of those board members, Sue Grey, noted the district's teachers and support personnel have three-year contracts. She said she doesn't want to vote for a contract extension beyond her term on the board.

I agree that Culver did an excellent job in stewarding Unit 4 through the end of the Consent Decree.   I don't agree that his contract should perpetually be four years from expiring.  And I agree with those Board members who don't want to push the contract into the term of the next Board.  Grey, Lockman and Novak are absolutely correct in voting against this extension.

Via the N-G yesterday (http://www.news-gazette.com/news/politics-and-government/2010-02-21/local-representatives-try-lead-way-some-issues.html)

State Rep. Shane Cultra, R-Onarga, has a bill to restore corporal punishment in Illinois public schools, although he said he is amending the bill to restrict a school district's liability in the event of a lawsuit by parents.

"I do a lot of legislation that doesn't go anywhere and this is probably one of them," Cultra said. "But I see a lot of problems in the schools. They just don't have control in the classrooms. If you could just start it at the lower grades and the kids knew there was some kind of punishment involved, maybe a teacher could get control of the classroom and the kids could learn."

The success of his corporal punishment bill, Cultra said, will depend on whether it is supported by teachers' unions. "If they don't like it, it won't go anywhere," he said.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find this appalling?

The bleeding continues:

The Mahomet-Seymour school district has announced proposed cuts to its 2011 budget totaling $643,211, including employee layoffs and some cuts to programs.

According to a letter released to the media and public on Friday, the cuts are a direct result of the state's revenue crisis.

The state is currently running an estimated $12 billion deficit.

"We'll have to take precautionary steps, because there are some question marks out there right now," Keith Oates, superintendent of Mahomet-Seymour schools, said.

The District's information is here.

Today's NG:

A revised plan for budget cuts in the Champaign school district would eliminate two additional administrative positions but remove several other possible cuts from consideration.

The school board talked again about the cuts at a noon meeting Wednesday.

The revised recommendations include eliminating an administrative position in the special-education department and another director, for a total savings of $200,000. That would allow the district to avoid making cuts in other areas.

The recommendations in- clude selling land near Barkstall and Dr. Howard elementary schools, which would bring in an estimated $435,000; paying for $200,000 in building ex- penses with facilities sales-tax money rather than money in the Operations & Maintenance fund; and reducing district travel expenses by $50,000.

The proposals that would be eliminated from consideration include cutting middle school and high school athletic budgets (which would have meant cutting middle school baseball); reducing library aides; reducing world language offerings at sixth grade; reducing elementary band and strings teachers; reducing enrichment teachers; increasing textbook rental fees; and charging fees for extracurricular activities.

You can see a list of proposed cuts here.  Per Board member Greg Novak in the comments of another thread, there's a listening meeting open to the public tonight, at Unit 4 HQ, 703 S. New St., Champaign.

Eating Crow

As a politician one always wants to do what is right and best for the political organization that he/she has been chosen to represent by the public. Sometimes one does that, and sometimes one fails. And sometimes one does what is right – but needs to eat some crow along the way. So while someone passes me the salt and pepper – and perhaps some catsup I shall start eating crow.

Also I need to make my apologies to Arvid for questioning his information by the way – he was right – and I was mistaken. Se mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxi cupla.

And to the unknown person who demanded that I post information – here it is:

I asked the district to supply me with the purchase prices of the homes that were purchased on Cynthia next to the Garden Hills School as well as the market price was established by the Assessor – which I believe was based on the tax records. In some cases the purchase price listed below includes payments for closing fees, moving expenses or other items so that the price paid for the house itself might be different then what the district lists as the purchase price. Regardless of how the price was structured – what is listed below is what the District paid out for each property:

Market Value District
per Assessor Paid

1902 Cynthia $84,965 $127,500

1904 Cynthia $88,430 $110,000

1906 Cynthia $89,575 $122,500

1908 Cynthia $102,983 $125,000

2000 Cynthia $90,570 $95,000

2002 Cynthia $67,852 $121,500

Totals $524,375 $701,500

Total mark up over assessed value 33%

The money for these purchases came from the new School Infrastructure Sales Tax – money which can not be used to pay for District salary or operations. So while it may seem odd to be cutting one fund while spending from another – these funds can not be used except for the purpose intended - improvement of schools and new schools - and property purchase is indeed legal.

Now in my opinion was the extra money well spent??

First and foremost the district acquired needed property at Garden Hills on a fast track basis. The houses are ready to be demolished and the property used during construction starting this spring. The district wants to get the Garden Hills extension up and ready for the start of school in August of 2011 – so having this land ready now means that we have a better chance of making our timetable. And the district/School Board talked to the architects during the planning process and were told that any extra land on that site could only help the improve the site - they were pleased to get the additional space.

Second – the district did not use eminent domain to force anyone out of land that they did not want to sell. We could have gone to court and taken more time, paid out additional fees to lawyers and experts and then let a jury determine compensation. Could have been more, could have been less – could have been settled next fall. Instead the property owners have settled for what they felt was a fair price to allow Unit Four to disrupt their lives - not only to sell but move out as soon as possible.

I have long called for the District is have some sort of long term plan and am happy to say that a committee is staring to address these issues. Hopefully in the future we can start purchasing land needed on a long term basis ahead of it needs– especially as we now have a dedicated source of income for such purposes.

More catsup please

The Federal Lord Judge has finally signed off on the negotiated end to the Consent Decree.

The Champaign school district’s consent decree case is officially over.

Federal District Court Judge Joe Billy McDade entered an order Wednesday afternoon approving the proposed settlement agreement reached by the school district and the plaintiffs this summer.

"The Consent Decree is hereby terminated in its entirety."  Yea!

From an op-ed by State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago):

You would think that Chicago teachers, Mayor Richard Daley, churches and elected officials would care enough to work together to improve the system. But instead, the Chicago Teachers Union has figured out a way for teachers to not be evaluated on obvious criteria, such as how well they perform in the classroom.

Nobody wants to be held accountable, but the blood of every child is on our hands.

We must also decide whether Mayor Daley should continue to preside over the Chicago schools. Since he assumed control of the district in 1995, the Blackhawks have had nine coaches, the Bulls have had eight coaches, the Cubs have had five managers and the White Sox have had three managers.

For the first time in my personal and political career, I am exploring the idea of vouchers and charter schools to help facilitate choice and enhance academic performance. Why should we continue to make investments in a system that is bankrupt and weighed down with bureaucracy?

We must begin making decisions that are in the best interest of children, such as mandatory teacher evaluations. Since the will to change the system is nonexistent, we should allow students the flexibility to attend schools outside their district. What once worked before, such as the local school councils, may have run its course in today's competitive environment.

They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. We can no longer afford to have the blood of every child on our hands.

I would love for charter schools, vouchers, mandatory teacher evaluations, etc. get a serious hearing in Illinois, not because I think they are a panacea for what ails our schools (and Chicago schools more specificially) but as part of a larger discussion of how we can improve our entire educational system - bureacracy, funding, and teaching - to better empower students and families, while recognizing that some kids and some families present enormous educational challenges.  Your thoughts?

Today's NG:

The Champaign school district needs to cut $2 million from its budget for each of the next two years, says its chief financial officer, Gene Logas.

Logas talked to school board members at a Monday night study session about his predictions for the district's finances for the next two years and his suggestions for making cuts to balance the budgets.

Logas recommended the board consider $2 million in cuts next year, as well as issuing working cash bonds and further spending down its fund balance.

Logas predicted the school district will end this fiscal year with a deficit of nearly $4 million.

Discuss.

Discovery in this suit could get a little messy:

Unit 5 School District deliberately misled the Urbana school district about former Colene Hoose teacher and convicted sex offender Jon White, according to an Urbana lawsuit filed against the local district.

In the civil action asking at least $1 million in damages, Urbana officials accuse Unit 5 of failing to investigate parental complaints of White's inappropriate behavior toward female students and falsifying White's tenure in Unit 5.

The infuriating thing about the Jon White story, to me, is not that administrators in Normal and Urbana should have known earlier or more fully that he was abusing his students.  It's that, first in Normal and then in Urbana, the administrators apparent initial reactions was to try to protect the district by covering up the discovery. 

In Normal, unbelievably, they wanted to make the problem go away so badly that actually recommended White for hiring by the Urbana district, and in doing so they put other children in harm's way.  It's unthinkable.

I thought this might be interesting, given Champaign Unit 4's current machinations to get out from under a Consent Decree:

A federal judge has ended the desegregation consent decree for Chicago's Public Schools, 29 years to the day after the federal government sued the district for discriminating against black and Hispanic students.

Under the decree, white students were allowed a maximum of 35 percent of seats at the city's top schools. The elimination of the decree also frees the district from requirements regarding bilingual students.

CPS had argued the district should no longer be bound by the order. The district says it no longer operates a system that favors white students, who now make up only 8 percent of the system.

I'll keep looking for a full copy of the ruling.

UPDATE:  And the NG has this today:

Many people are concerned the new committee – to be called the "Education Equity Excellence" committee – will not adequately represent the interests of black students, or allow the black community the same voice it has had through PIC.

The school board had its first look at administrative regulations for the new committee earlier this month. They call for 10 committee members, including Superintendent Arthur Culver and another central office administrator, a school board member, a principal, a representative of the teachers' union, and five community members representing a "diverse cross-section of the community" reflecting the district's student enrollment.

"That's code for, we're now going to have people on the committee who don't necessarily have a relationship with the plaintiff class," – the black students in the district, Bazzell said.

Discuss.

The Sunday N-G editorial, 20 Sept 2009 prompts these musings. In essense, for those who have not had time to read the paper, the editorial staff ponders who might stear the UIUC education ship of state during the upcoming transition years, assuming that the BOT will act on the UIUC Senate vote. It just happened that yesterday I was involved in a hypothetical discussion exploring who might step into various interim positions. This hypothetical was followed by silence, finally broken with my weak reply that there are no "Cribbetts" and "Weirs" standing in the wings. Obviously, this does not mean that there might be individuals who will rise beautifully to the occasion and the university is so big that it will not implode. Nonetheless, no names were put forth as possibilities. It would be interesting to read IP posters suggestions.

In any case, the editoral writer continues by reminding all of us of the ending dates of White and Hermann's contracts, respectively, along with the total of $775,000 in bonus monies. This wound my thinking back to the graduate students employees' ad in the DI pointing out that they are still in salary negotiations, what the present salaries are, what the cost of living in C-U is,  some examples of wasted monies on this campus, such as Global Campus, and the statement by Robin Kaler, as the university spokesperson, that the university can not afford salary increases. As all of this was getting public revelation, it was announced that Garner, who was director of the Global Campus, would maintain his $300,000 plus salary because the Chancellor's Office would provide approximately 1/3 of the amount. And as cloutgate was enjoying the front page privelege on the Tribune, we learned that we could check how state monies were used for salaries for all of the state schools via the Sun-Times web site. (I mention these to show that all of this infomation is in the public domain.) 

"Follow the money" admonition has been posted within several different IP threads. Actually, this just may be a valid suggestion for various news organizations to discover whether the economic hard-times at UIUC is actual, so no raises for the grad assistants; if so, just how deep; if so, could more judicious decision-making have minimized the depth; if so, what means can be used to curtail economically challenging decision-making, etc. I am certain a large number of the IP readers have examples of mis-spent monies, maybe not to the extreme extent of close to $10 M on the Global Campus.

Pattsi Petrie

Coming to Central Illinois

The Making of America Seminar

offered by

The National Center For Constitutional Studies

October 24, 2009

A LEARNING EXPERIENCE YOUR FAMILY WILL NEVER FORGET

Seminar Schedule

(with intermittent breaks)

8:30am-11:30am- "Developing America's Great Success Formula"

This is the exciting exploration of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Washington and others to rediscover the keys to the creation of the first free nation in modern times. We'll trace their adventure from 1400 B.C. to 1787 A.D.

12:00PM-12:45PM- Lunch Break

12:45pm-4:30pm- "The Perfect Plan of Liberty"

A refreshing look at the solid political and economic principles from the preamble through the amendments to the Constitution. You'll learn perhaps for the first time, how nearly every problem in Amercia today can be solved by restoring these successful concepts.

Your family will see, hear and learn with exciting, unforgettable stories and fill-in-the-blank study guides--all developed by a master teacher, Dr. W. Cleon Skousen

Seminar Tickets

If purchased before September 22, 2009

$15.00 per individual

$35.00 per family (12 yrs old +)

If purchased after September 22, 2009

$25.00 per individual

$45.00 per family (12 yrs old +)

This seminar will be held at the:

Monticello Christian Academy

225 E Livingston St.

Monticello, Illinois 61856

Please contact Ann McDavitt for tickets

mcdavitt6@yahoo.com

217-762-2153 H

217-722-6802 C

"The primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing...than....communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?

--George Washington

There was a hearing on Unit 4's Consent Decree yesterday:

One of the settlement provisions is the establishment of an equity committee, with a diverse group of community members, to review data on achievement, attendance, discipline and other areas that were covered by the consent decree. Several people were concerned the committee would not have enough black representatives or have enough clout to hold the district accountable.

McDade questioned school board President Dave Tomlinson about the distrust. Tomlinson noted the school board has policies in place to ensure all students get a quality education, it is proceeding with plans to add the north side seats, and the board will hold the superintendent accountable for following through.

"Essentially, your response is, 'Trust us,'" McDade said.

"Trust us to do it, with the African-American community's help," Tomlinson replied.

Isn't "trust us" the response of every school district not under a Consent Decree anyway?  If the federal courts don't trust Unit 4 to follow the law moving forward, then why are they allowing the Consent Decree to end?  What am I missing?

It's been quite a year for Locke High School and on Monday, some new stats revealed just how much has changed since Green Dot Public Charter Schools took control.

http://www.greendot.org/news/article/new_locke_high_stats_revealed

 A little history:

Change can be good.

No, that's not a typo:

District officials have said they will not pay for any work related to trying to extend the consent decree. They have also objected to specific fee requests based on the presence of more than two plaintiffs' attorneys at certain meetings, the time spent on certain work, and hourly rates, among other things.

Ashley says, in the court filings, that the amount owed to her Chicago law firm is $1,091,381.50.

Although she called the district's distinction between work related to extending the consent decree and work which was not a "false" distinction, she divided the fees according to the related work.

She says the firm is owed $336,667 for work that is not related to extending the consent decree, and $670,461 for extension-related work, as well as $84,253.50 for work related to seeking payment of fees – "work largely created by District's counsel."

The court document also states that $169,232.85 is owed to Rockford attorney Venita Hervey, who also did work for the plaintiffs.

Ugh.

WDWS is reporting that Champaign Unit 4 and the Consent Decree plaintiffs have agreed to a settlement that will end the Consent Decree.  I'll be awaiting, and posting, more details as they become available.

UPDATE:  The NG:

The settlement comes days before a judge was to decide whether the consent decree should be extended in three areas. A three-day hearing was set to begin Monday in Peoria.

School board President Dave Tomlinson said he is “very pleased” with the tentative agreement, but he would not give any details until after the board votes on it this evening.

UPDATE x2:  More from the NG:

To bring the case to an end, the school district agreed to adopt several policies regarding opening and closing schools, special education referrals, and support for students in alternative programs.

But "there is no monitoring by a third party and there is no money involved," Tomlinson said. "No court oversight, no court monitor oversight, no attorney oversight.

"I can't tell you how pleased we are with this agreement," he continued.

That sounds fantastic to me.  Also:

Superintendent Arthur Culver called the fulfillment of the consent decree "the finest hour in my career."

"This really is a community success," he added. He said the consent decree "gave us the leverage to do what needed to be done," and make changes that needed to be made because they are good educational practices.

Tomlinson added that the decree opened a much-needed dialogue on issues of race in Champaign, and he urged the community to continue to improve race relations in the city.

Tomlinson also praised Culver and his staff.

"These folks have had a tremendous amount of pressure. Arthur and his team were hired to bring this district through the consent decree, and they have done it," Tomlinson said. "They have brought the achievement gap much closer together. Teachers and support staff worked extremely hard to get us where we are, and we're going to continue to make these efforts."

Culver agreed.

"The achievement gap has closed significantly, but I am not pleased until there is no achievement gap."

That is correct - Supt. Culver deserves a lot of the credit, and should be given his due.

There's more information in the NG article, so read the whole thing.  And as far as I can tell, the final agreement hasn't yet been posted by Unit 4, but I'll keep checking to see when it is, or post it here if someone can send me a copy.

This is, to me, the best news for our community so far in 2009.

http://cloutcollege.apps.chicagotribune.com/cloutschools/

A fun little tool, courtesy of our friends at the Chicago Tribune.

Type in the name of your high school; see how many kids got admitted to the U. of I. from 2005-2009.

0 from my high school; will be searching for other schools down home.

Just posted on the News-Gazette website:  "Judge terminates most of Champaign consent decree."  The remaining parts of the Consent Decree that are still operable are those that the plaintiffs had filed a motion requesting an extension for a few months ago.  The specific areas, according to the article, are "special education, alternative education, and the addition of elementary seats in north Champaign."  The next hearing is currently set for August 3, but Judge McDade may schedule conferences in order to reach a settlement prior to that hearing date.  Personally, I don't see how the complaint about adding elementary seats in north Champaign would be extended, given how the recent tax increase measures failed during the last few elections.  The district seems to have done everything in its power to increase seats, but the voters would not approve a tx increase to fund those new seats; I don't see how the district could reasonably be faulted for that.

As an aside, I found the article is somewhat confusing to read; it may be a "breaking news" type entry, and will be refined later however.

As IP says, discuss...

HG

it almost makes American schools look good...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/04/autism-asperger-s-education-society