Education Matters US

GURNEE — VOICES, a citizen-led effort aimed at improving communication between Gurnee Grade School District 56 and residents, will meet from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday to discuss how staffing, class size, technology and facilities affect student achievement.

The meeting, which will be held Viking School, 4460 Old Grand Ave., will also inform residents on how the district hires, trains and evaluates staff, how much teachers in the district earn compared to neighboring districts and statewide and how state and federal mandates have changed teacher accountability.

Led by seven community members, VOICES is studying the issues and challenges facing Gurnee School District 56. A set of recommendations will be created by the community and presented to the Board of Education.

The District is paying $40,000 for this program run by a Public Relations firm our of St. Louis. Where is the District coming up with this money when they are supposedly in such financial trouble? Wouldn’t the money have been better spent on the kids? What about the message being sent to the District after 7 failed referendums? Why doesn’t the District get the message that the resident so Gurnee want alternatives to a tax increase. They want a stop to the wasting of their money. This is another $40,000 down the drain and all in the hopes that they can convince enough taxpayers to take more money from their neighbors.

As Kevin Killion of illinoisloop.org said, VOICES participants have been Delphi’ed. This is a technique that’s been around a while to rid issues of dissenters and shove through agendas that have significant opposition. Google “delphi technique” and check out the links below for information on what Unicom-ARC is doing for the $40,000, and how to successfully dissent in one of these sessions.

Here are a couple links: http://www.iror.org/delphi.asp and http://www.americanpolicy.org/educ/thedelphi.htm. Check with attendees, and see if their experience at a VOICES session is along the lines of how the Delphi Technique is described. Here’s a good page on how to successfully disrupt it: http://www.iror.org/delphi_disrupt.asp.

By all means, read up about the Delphi technique. You’ll find lots of refs and links here:

Illinois Loop: School Committees

Two quotes start that page:

“Viewers of the great 1973 movie The Sting, which introduced the concept of the Big Con, will recall that the secret of this ultimate confidence game is that the mark must never come to know that he was played. He must continue to believe the game was the real thing.”
— John Podhoretz

“I never realized what it was at the time. At most I had a vague sensation that something was not quite right, but I could not figure out what it was.”
— a typical Delphi participant

Comment by Chris — 10/28/2005 @ 3:49 pm