Education

Today's News-Gazette:

Though a racial and economic achievement gap is still evident in Prairie State Achievement Exam scores, and though many of the scores don't meet or exceed the testing benchmark of 62.5 percent, the high school's students have shown enough growth in their test scores in every category to qualify as passing.

The rising scores, as well as the school's new rating, provoked joy from many of staff member.

"It means what we are doing as a team works. It's awesome!" dean Stephanie Price-Hammond said to the group of teachers hearing the news Monday.

The passing scores also mean the school does not have to restructure this year, though staff plan to go through with the planned changes anyway, including adding more time to the school day for freshmen and sophomores to work with teachers in subjects where they need help.

Discuss.

Eight of them?

Students, parents and teachers will see new faces in the principal's office at many Champaign schools when classes begin this week. Four of the district's 11 elementary schools have new principals, as does one of its three middle schools and both its high schools. The district's new academic alternative program has a new leader as well. The News-Gazette's Jodi Heckel takes a closer look at each of the new leaders.

My favorite response, from Joe Williams at Central:

What is your No. 1 goal for this position? Without a doubt, the No. 1 goal is to develop a strong collaborative culture focused on student learning, using best practice research within the context of our current reality. This is a dynamic process that, if implemented authentically, will improve the level of student learning for all students.

That's a lot of buzzwords.

Regardless of how one feels about testing, it's certainly better to beat the national average:

According to data released by ACT, the makers of the same-named test of college readiness, the average ACT score of a student in Illinois is 20.7 of 36 possible.

But in Urbana, Champaign, St. Joseph-Ogden and several other high schools, the averages surpass the state's.

In Urbana, for at least the eight years that Principal Laura Taylor has records, students have scored higher than the state average. This year, the class of 2008 averaged 21 – the same as the national average for the test, and a score she attributes to the school's "very strong college-prep curriculum."

Taylor said the school did not yet have an average score for the incoming seniors in the class of 2009, but would have it available soon.

Both Champaign high schools have scored higher than the state average since 2004, said Assistant Superintendent Beth Shepperd.

"We're very proud of that," she said.

The average score for students in the Centennial Class of 2008 was 21.6, and for Central students it was 20.9.

In addition, all Illinois students are required to take the ACT, which impacts how we do against the national average.  We too often focus on our local schools' deficiencies, and forget to mention good news like this.

The County Board Policy Committee passed the County Schools Sales Tax Referendum on to the full County Board tonight.  The resolution passed with the full one cent. It is to place the question on the November ballot.

Here is the report presented tonight at the committee meeting of the school districts based in Champaign County and how much they have proposed in property tax relief.

Here is a chart of the rates for bonds for the various school districts for this year's tax bills. These numbers can vary dramatically from one year to the next.

I'm not fully aware of the law.  I'm guessing that the districts which are only partly in Champaign County will probably get revenue from this as well. 

Today's News-Gazette:

Dimit and board member Brenda Carter – who has children at three schools in the district – will represent the board on the committee. Ota Dossett, the district's facilities director, will represent the school district.

Joe Vitosky, in the University of Illinois Office of Capital Programs and Real Estate Services, and Diane Marlin, who has been a Leal Elementary School, Urbana Middle School and high school parent, will serve as co-chairs.

Dimit said the rest of the committee includes Urbana police officer and parent Anthony Cobb; Sandra Carter, a parent active in the King Elementary School Parent Teacher Association; Mark Dixon, with The Atkins Group and an Urbana parent; Libby Tyler, community development director and city planner for Urbana; business owner and Urbana graduate Paul Tatman; David Guth, a parent from the Prairie Elementary School area; and parent and former school board member Donna Rinkenberger.

Discuss.

Former Navy Seal, Wrestler, and Governor of Minnesota, author Jesse Ventura is interviewed by Al Jazeera English. Jesse, author of "Don't Start the Revolution Without Me" talks about partisan politics in the United States and shares his astute and candid observations.

Part 1

Part 2

Another interesting article from this weekend's News-Gazette regarding Urbana High Schools federally-mandated NCLB restructuring:

After months of meeting and debating, the plan to restructure Urbana High School in the wake of failing to meet federal testing benchmarks has yet to be finalized.

In a June 4 e-mail, the State Board of Education gave the district 30 days to come up with a revised plan for figuring out what's working and fixing what's not.

But those days have come and gone. School starts next month, and though parts of the plan are still undecided, Urbana schools staff members have begun altering how UHS functions.

When school starts Aug. 27 for freshmen (Aug. 28 for grades 10-12), students will have an altered day, including more extra-help time with teachers for underclassmen. Freshmen will share teachers in core subject areas like math and reading, and teachers will meet more regularly to share knowledge and skills, a concept called a professional learning community.

More on restructuring in general here.  Both articles are quite good.  The NG has been doing a great job with local stories lately (or at least so it seems to me), with this seris, the Jon White stories, and the Garden Hills stories, among others.

Of every 100 freshmen entering a Chicago public high school, only about six will earn a bachelor's degree by the time they're in their mid-20s, according to a first-of-its-kind study released Thursday by the Consortium on Chicago School Research.

'We need more money.'

"Conclusion: A large number of high-quality studies show that vouchers improve academic achievement. No such study has ever found that vouchers hurt academic achievement"

'We need more money.'

The benefits of this idea, which has come to be known as school choice, are numerous. Studies show that school choice leads to better test scores for all students and higher graduation rates. They show that parents are more satisfied and involved with their child’s school, and that school choice saves taxpayers millions of dollars. And they show that public schools respond positively to competition

'We need more money.'

Let's get this done already.

'We need more money.'

If it can work in Los Angeles, it can work in Chicago!

'We need more money'.

This is why most people are scared to do what's best for the kids.   It's going to be a fight and the teacher unions are not in favor of an idea that introduces horrible ideas like competion and accountability.   You really have to watch the video to appreciate this...

'We need more money'

Illinois provides a tax credit covering educational expenses for students in any private or public school, including tuition, books and lab or activity fees. The credit is worth a maximum of $500. This makes it a little bit easier for families to choose a private school for their children.   The Illinois Federation Teachers and the Illinois Education Association filed a lawsuit preventing this.

'We need more money'

Rather than implement a proven idea to make our schools better, let's do whatever it takes to get more money no matter how stupid the idea is.

'We need more money'

The ideology that removes choice and then increases dependency on those who made it that way has been and always will be catastrophic.   The results speak for themselves.   I was listening on the radio a couple of days ago where the big teachers groups had come back from some conference.   Does anyone want to guess what they were asking for? 

Bringing this over here, so we don't threadjack the healthcare discussion.

Educate Thyself. 

Don't talk to the police.  Don't talk to the police.  Don't talk to the police.

http://www.hackaday.com/2008/06/16/dont-talk-to-the-police/

Today's News-Gazette:

Urbana High School is facing restructuring after five years of groups within the school failing to meet testing benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. As a result, the district needs to come up with a plan that is approved not only by the Urbana school board, but also by the Illinois State Board of Education.

Though the Urbana board approved a plan earlier in the spring, passing the state board is proving a hurdle. The Urbana-board-approved restructuring plan called for extra time for freshmen and sophomores to work one-on-one with teachers in subject areas in which the students need help, as well as more frequent classroom evaluations.

But the Urbana board did not approve a new $70,000 administrator position for evaluation and accountability, one recommendation from the original restructuring plan.

And on June 4, Carol Diedrichsen of the state board told the district that the restructuring plan "does not sufficiently describe a change of governance as required by law. ... The plan needs revision to include the structure for accountability, monitoring and support necessary to effect significant change in instruction."

Discuss.

Today's articles about the Jon White travesty are a follow-up to yesterday's "How Could This Happen" series.

First, Districts more careful about who comes in contact with children:

As for mandated reporting, Williams said, staff members "get information when they're hired, and then also at the beginning of the year."

Staff members must all sign a sheet stating that they understand they are mandated reporters. As well, he said, in the first in-service meeting of the school year, they get training on mandated reporting, another new element.

Training staff on mandated reporting is one way schools can make a difference in recognition and response to child sexual abuse, said Charol Shakeshaft, the author of a U.S. Department of Education-sponsored paper on educator sexual misconduct and an educational leadership professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"Training in this area needs to be done regularly," she said. "It needs to be done every year."

Second, Urbana getting bigger legal bills:

In invoices dated Feb. 15, 2007, and March 23, 2007 – just after White's charges were filed – the district received $24,928 in legal bills from Weedman's firm. In the previous two months, the district received $7,307 in legal bills from Weedman's firm.

The Urbana school board hired a separate firm, The Taylor Law Office in Effingham, specifically for the purpose of evaluating the district's response to concerns about White and to look at its policies.

Bills from the law firm – one from April 2007 and one from June 2007 – show the school district has already paid at least $42,804 for the external review.

Third, 2002 case strikingly similar to White case:

If the case of Jon White feels eerily familiar to some East Central Illinoisans, there's a good reason.

In 2002, Gerald Scott Huddleston, then a teacher at Chatsworth Elementary School in Livingston County, was charged with committing oral sex acts against young girls.

The circumstances of his acts read like a playbook that White – who attended nearby Illinois State University at the time – could have followed: bringing students to the classroom to help with cleaning, blindfolding students and having them perform a "tasting game."

Huddleston was convicted on three counts of predatory criminal sexual assault, and is now serving life in prison at Menard.

Discuss.

Today's N-G has an excellent article on how Jon White might have been stopped earlier, and wasn't.  There's also a followup about what's happened since, and some related articles about mandatory reporting.

Jon White could have been stopped much earlier.

There were at least seven warning points at which a school employee in either Urbana or McLean County could have justified a call to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

No one did.

And so White – the man convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for acts involving 10 children – kept teaching.

Discuss.

This link tells it all

I've obtained this memo sent to Champaign County Board members outlining the announced plans of each of the County's school districts if the proposed one percent sales tax increase for education facilities passes in November.

There's no real new information in this, but it is a very useful summary of plans.  You can read the whole thing yourself, but you'll note that every district which has existing debt is currently promising to use sales tax revenue to abate or eliminate that debt (and reduce property taxes as a consequence), although the amounts vary.

Key information to remember (taken from the memo):

Each of the Boards of Education of the 14 school districts in Champaign County has passed a resolution requesting that the Champaign County Board put the question of imposing a 1% sales tax for school facility purposes for submission to the voters of Champaign County at the November 4, 2008, election. If this resolution passes and the County Board implements the full 1% sales tax, the revenue can be used for the following purposes:

• Pay for projects as you go
• Leverage revenue for current needs (use revenue to pay for bonds)
• Retire existing debt issued for capital purposes (abate taxes)
• Any combination of the above

Discuss.

This just in:

CHICAGO (AP) - A federal judge in Chicago has barred school districts statewide from holding the daily moment of silence suitable for prayer that is required under state law.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said today he has given school districts time to object to his March 28 preliminary injunction on enforcement of the moment of silence law, but received no objections.

The Trib adds a personal touch:

"I didn't have a problem so much with the idea of us reflecting in school," said de Grazia, a junior who walked out of her first-period class when the moment of silence was first observed. "But I can't stand the idea of the government telling me what to think or what to say and when to do it."

Dawn Sherman, 14, said students at her school laughed at the silent moment when it was first implemented. "I was pretty much thinking that it was wasting my time," said Sherman.

For the record, Blagojevich vetoed this measure when it first arrived on his desk.

There is little doubt that white flight districts in central Illinois, like Mahomet-Seymour, will end up keeping the moment of silence for the rest of the year, at least.  Religion and schooling tends to mix pretty nicely in homogenous towns.  Expect further litigation over the summer.

long post with with hopefully some answers...

I have been reading with interest the continual comments about the County Wide Schools Facility Tax. It has now been approved by every school district in the county by, I believe, a unanimous vote by each individual board. I certainly see that there are myriad questions about the tax and just as many perceptions good and bad about the potential for the tax.

Though I cannot speak for any other school district besides Unit 4, I will try to answer some of the comments that have been asked on this blog...

1. Why go for the Max 1%? 
   Frankly, I don't think the ILGA intended for the TAX to be used as a mechanism for Property Tax relief. I think they intended to try and help school districts by providing another mechanism to fund capital projects. I may be wrong in that belief, but that is what I think. That being said, when the districts in Champaign County got together at the Regional Office of Education to discuss this tax, the key thing that we in Unit 4 talked about was that we would not support this new tax without some kind of relief for property owners. We feel that it is imperative that any reductions that can be made are made. IF we were to ask for 1/4%, we would be able to abate the same 9-10 cents /100 EAV that we are allowed to with this tax (AGAIN IT IS ONLY FOR CONSTRUCTION DEBT AND FACILITIES ISSUES, NOT SALARIES). That abatement in Unit 4 is approximately $15M. That is all the debt we have out and al we can abate with this potential revenue source. People can say all they want that it is not enough and I would totally agree. However, it is all we can do.

   If our only goal was to abate property taxes, then we would simply go for 1/4%. actually it begs the question if we are not going to do anything new other than pay off one type of debt with a different revenue stream, why would any district do that. In order to have construction bond debt, a district had to ask the voters for approval for property tax increases to begin with. Why would a district go back to the voters to ask for approval to do the same thing with a different source of income. Doesn't make sense to go back ask for something you already have

   This revenue source can be used for additional stuff, hence the 1% request. In Unit 4, we can dramatically increase the efficiency of our bldgs and put in A/C. Everyone of us works in an air conditioned environment and I often wonder why teachers and students should be asked to do something different than what we all do... We can also satisfy the consent decree requirements for the additional seats north of university ( yes I know that not everyone agrees with this, BUT it is a legal settlement that past boards agreed to and it is not open for contestation in court). We can update the infrastructure to support the computers needed for today's learning environment. We could build a school south of University if needed. More to come later on this subject. 
   If another district wants to post about their plans, that would be great.

2. Why are you doing to reduce the cost of doing business?
   Since I have been on the board, we have delayed a textbook adoption by one year, saving the interest on $700,000. We have refinanced debt at a much lower rate saving several hundred thousand dollars in interest payments. The night I was elected the previous board cut $2M in annual expenditures, We have bought lower priced energy through co-op arrangements, we have not filled at least 15 positions that I am aware of off the top of my head that have been vacated and we decided not to fill them to save money. Just a name a few of the items...

   Each year staff throughout the district ask the board for programs to increase this or that. The vast majority have been met with good idea, but we can't afford it right now. Even this week we were presented with middle school athletic program additions, last month it was additional foreign language offerings.

   All of these ideas are terrific and the vast majority need to be added as soon as possible. However, they can only be looked at as part of a total budget package. An individual request for $100K in expenditures seems insignificant in a $95M operation, but we get 10 such requests/ideas a month. Those add up to a major deficit.

   2 months ago the board was asked to give a list of programs we would like to add because they are things that community members have asked us to do. That "dream sheet" combined with staff requests added up to close to $28 Million dollars for year!!!! Obviously there is no way we can or will approve that kind of increase.

   On another note, Schools are highly regulated about how we spend and collect taxes. The hold the line/reduce costs items are typically found in the Education fund/Transportation areas. Taxes are levied into individual funds and increases are limited by PTELL. Those hold the line/reduce costs are not generally found in the O and M and Health Life Safety areas. These are generally low Levy's and are not near enough to pay for recurring costs as facilities get older and older. Look at some of the facilities in Unit 4 and the county and you can see just how much cost reduction there is when it comes to stretching the maintenance dollar. Those folks are masters of stretching a dollar for building issues.

3. This is simple a "Bait and Switch"For some this is a tax increase. (those who don't own property in Champaign County)

   For others this will be a tax decrease (those who own property in a district that plans to abate some portion of the property tax bill related to construction debt and who don't spend as much on the retail goods) I suspect a good portion of the 'middle" class will fall in this area at least in Unit 4)

   For others it will be a wash. It will reduce property taxes and you will spend enough on taxable items to negate the property tax savings.

   If anyone is saying that some will not pay additional money in their total tax package (property, income, sales, etc) they are wrong. Some will pay more and some will pay less, most will probably pay about the same... those are the facts.

   However, for the same amount for the property owner, the schools throughout the county could be greatly improved.

   If facilities don't matter, than why do so many people ask me why we can't have facilities like Normal Unit 5? I am asked that often.

I am sure that I will have more later. Especially a detailed plan about how we in Unit 4 will spend this revenue if approved. Including a mechanism for accountability.

If you have any questions, you can feel free to contact me at tomlindw@comcast.net or 217-202-6841

Dave Tomlinson, President
Champaign Unit 4 Schools Board of Education

From today's News-Gazette:

The Illinois House on Tuesday passed legislation appropriating $25 million for the design and construction of the school, which would be the first of its kind in the state. The bill now goes to the state Senate.

"We're excited to get to this step," said Greg Wolfe, Oakwood School Board president. "It's what we've been hopeful for and working towards. ... We can't foot this on our own. It's critical that we have state assistance."

State Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, introduced House Bill 628 in February 2007. It originally appropriated $15 million for the project, but the amount was increased to $25 million.

In 2006, Black laid the groundwork by spearheading the passage of a law that makes cooperative high schools eligible for some of the same incentive funding offered to districts that consolidate.

Didn't I just see a letter to the editor from the Vermilion County Democratic Chairman stating that Bill Black was too old to effectively serve in the legislature?

Both Champaign Unit 4 and Rantoul Township High School boards have voted to support a November ballot question asking voters for a one percent sales tax increase to support education.  Both Districts are using a miniscule amount of property tax relief to mask their request for the largest-possible tax increase, as have most other area school districts, and most media reports are emphasizing the property tax relief as if it somehow offsets the sales tax revenue which will be generated.

It will be interesting to see if the County Board puts the full one-percent increase on the ballot, or if they settle for a smaller amount.

And it will be interesting to see how long the "this is about property tax relief" storyline is allowed to play out before people realize that the sales tax revenues of a one percent increase are several times larger than the maximum amount of property tax relief allowable.

Unsurprising:

The Urbana school board passed a resolution Tuesday night calling for a 1 percent countywide sales tax to be put on the November ballot.

With its vote, 11 school districts in the county have now passed such a resolution. Those districts represent almost half of the county's school enrollment, said Jane Quinlan, superintendent of the regional office of education. State law provides that districts representing at least 51 percent of the county's school enrollment can place a tax question on the ballot by approving a resolution such as Urbana did.

A county policy committee will discuss the proposed sales tax at a meeting tonight.

The Urbana school board also passed a resolution Tuesday pledging to use a portion of the money it would receive if such a tax passes to abate property taxes. The resolution states that the district would use $1 million annually to pay off building bonds.

"It's the first step in moving away from a total reliance on property taxes," said Urbana school board President Mark Netter.