With Lennie’s approval,
Lisa (Lennie’s wife)

The results were dramatic. The exodus from Public School won’t happen becuase teachers know they teach or lose funding. New Zealand started with a scoring gap of 14 to 15 points between public and private schools. This was erased in 2 years. Within 3 years, 87% of students attended Public schools whereas 85% did when they started the project. The most impressive stat is with those three years their schools scored wents “from 14 or 15 percent below our international peers to being about 14 or 15 percent above our international peers in terms of educational attainment.”

How could that be done, Bruno?

The theme is the same – school districts lie, and they use all the unnecessary (yet 100% intentional) complexity of the property tax system to spin numbers one way or the other. With out going into all the arcane details, here is a simple question. Post referendum, did all your taxes equal what they were supposed to be, or were they higher.

School District all over IL have:

Used Working Cash bonds to circumvent tax caps
Phased in tax hikes to rake in much more than originally billed in refernenda campaigns
Used questionable “Health, Life, Safety” exceptions to circumvent voters that turned down unneeded building projects
etc. etc.

You know my position Carl. The Education Establishment in the USA is a corrupt enterprise, and it is more corrupt in IL than it is in most other states.

Local Control is a myth as 90% of what a district does is mandated by the state. The idea that property taxes are “local” is also a myth, as the property tax for schools is a “state authorized” tax, and could be repealed outright in the next legislative session.

We “carpetbaggers” (and you appear to have joined us in carpetbagging) are simply pointing out the unwelcome truth about this corrupt system. Districts are merely “franchises” of the same corrupt enterprize, and we simply go from franchise to franchise pointing out this “corruption.”

We represent that portion of the population that a) aren’t brainwashed into thinking that ‘public schools’ are unassailable institutions of learning, and b) taxpayers who have become too frightened of the vile social pressure brought to bear by the PTOs and their brainwashed minnions spouting the zombie like “it’s for the children” garbage.

Every child in the nation could recieve a fine education for far less than is currently spent. All we have to do is disempower the ossified, protected, and bloated bureaucracies that are feeding off of the taxpayers.

How about that debate, Carl. Any time, any place, any issue.

Quote: “1. A Northerner who went to the South after the Civil War for political or financial advantage. 2. An outsider, especially a politician, who presumptuously seeks a position or success in a new locality.”

“A carpetbagger is someone who comes to your town, claims to have all the answers to solve all your problems, trashes your community and LEAVES! CRAFT is an organization based in Harvard Illinois. Lennie is from Round Lake.” End quote.

Since Lennie is from the south, I guess that doesn’t fit and he’s not a politician so I guess that doesn’t fit either. Hmmmm. As far as trashing our community… our district now have the programs back that were taken away from the children in d46 because their wasn’t enough money. The old board said it wasn’t possible to restore them without a referendum and here we are! The new board restoring programs without a referendum in less than 2 months after taking their seats. I think that they have done some wonderful work in the very short time they have been in office. As far as Lennie specifically having a huge impact in why there is a new school board and there wasn’t a referendum passed… he would say that you give him far too much credit. I think the credit lies in the voters that were fed up. That’s it.

So…I just don’t see it, Carl.

While we are on THIS subject… I’m just curious, (Carl), where are you from and do you own property there? Have you always been a resident or did you move here from somewhere?