UPDATE: The Illinois Legislature passed some semblance of pension reform tonight. See more details at Illinois Review.

According to school board member Tim Millar:

The bond issues will nearly double our debt from $63,000,000 to $114,000,000. This approximate $51,000,000 includes the bonds and the interest over the life of the bond. This is a $51,000,000 tax increase over 20 years to all D15 tax payers.

You can read how the school district spins it at their website

Basically, what is happening is the district wants to increase and extend the debt the district owes with new debt. The taxpayer gets saddled with current and a larger future debt and they don’t even get to say yes or no. This is just more government arrogance and the trampling of taxpayers. To stop this atrocity, visit Tim Millar’s site and help him gather signatures to force the district to put this on the ballot.

The revised numbers indicate that Illinois’ unfunded promises for state employees’ health care benefits now exceed $39.9 billion. As of June 30, 2007 this amount was calculated to be $23.9 billion. We have yet to determine why this liability went up by $16 billion in one year.

Illinois is also the worst offender in funding pensions [Emphasis mine]:

The worst case was Illinois, with a $54 billion gap between the cost of the benefits it had promised to pay retirees over the next 30 years and the amount it had set aside.

“Recessions and investment losses played smaller roles in the creation of this problem,” said Susan K. Urahn, the center’s managing director. “To a significant degree, the $1 trillion gap reflects states’ own policy choices and lack of discipline.”

The State Legislature has a spending problem and have for years. The taxpayers cannot and should not bail them out again with a tax increase. They have proven over and over again, they cannot be trusted with more of our money.

By Bill Zettler

RE: Retirement Benefits for State Employees vs. Non-state Employees.

NOTE: 320,000 of Illinois 6.5 million workers (5%) are eligible for state pension and retiree health care.

1. Why can 5% of Illinois workers retire with full pension and healthcare benefits at age 55 while the 95% have to wait until 65?
2. Why do 5% of Illinois workers have a constitutionally guaranteed pension while the 95% have no guarantee with Social Security or 401K’s?
3. Why do 5% of Illinois workers have superior retirement benefits compared to the other 95%?
4. Why do 5% of Illinois workers contribute an average of 8.4% of their pay to retire with health care at 55 while the 95% contribute 12% to retire with health care at 65?
5. Why is 25% of the 2014 state budget needed to fund retirement for 5% of Illinois workers?
6. Why do the 95% have to guarantee all investment losses for the pensions of the 5% when their own pension investments are not guaranteed?
7. Why do public employees average 5.5% – 7% salary increases per year while Social Security members average 4% per year?
8. Would state pensions have a surplus if pension payments were made on 4% salary increase and 12% employee contribution since 1990?
9. Why do 140,000 state university employees and state employees pay zero for health care while working and during retirement?
10. Why do the 95% have to pay a $130,000/yr pension for a 56-year old music teacher?
11. Why will the 95% have to pay $100,000 pensions for the 14,000 public school employees who make more than $10,000/mo when there are 75,000 certified teachers not teaching?

3,597 Illinois “Public Servants” Receive $100,000 Plus.

Pensions In 2009 Up 12% From 2008.

• 96 of the Top 100 are educators
• The Top 13 come from the state universities
• A $100,000 pension at age 55 is worth $2.4 million in cash
• Sixty-three State Employees Had Pensions Greater Than President Clinton’s Pension
• Average Pension (top 100) – $212,407

You can read the original request here. The district has been spending frivolously in this economy (links below) and now is trying to find over $2 million in cuts. Despite this, they have not been willing to provide data to the public on how they spend their money. We must now demand an end to the practice of no representation without information. To put it simple, “No Info, No Taxes”.

Please join us next week. You do not have to speak, just have your presences felt by being in the audience.

Here are a few past stories of district expenditures:

• D46 ADMIN PAY RAISES? – http://educationmatters.us/2009/05/04/d46-admin-pay-raises/
• GRAYSLAKE ELEMENTARY CUTS 29 JOBS – WHO’S TO BLAME – http://educationmatters.us/2009/03/26/grayslake-elementary-cuts-29-jobs-–-whos-to-blame/
• Grayslake school district employees going to Disney World – http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=334943
• Dist. 46 board says sending group to Disney money well spent – http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=336703
• Money tight? Let’s go to Disney World – http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=335303
• DISTRICT 46 PAID FOR AWARDS – http://educationmatters.us/2008/06/11/district-46-paid-for-awards/
• DISTRICT 46 SUPERINTENDENT ELLEN CORRELL DEFENDS PAYING FOR CONSULTANT WHO GAVE AWARDS – http://educationmatters.us/2008/06/12/district-46-superintendent-ellen-correll-defends-paying-for-consultant-who-gave-awards/

The purpose of this letter is to inform the Grayslake School District 46 Board members that several parent groups and citizen activist have contacted my office (Americans for Prosperity: www.afpil.org) requesting our assistance in educating the Grayslake School District 46 Board members on the values of transparency within government bodies. Specifically, Americans for Prosperity will be educating and engaging the general public on the need for the Grayslake School District 46 Board to develop and produce an on-line check register.

Americans for Prosperity is a national grassroots – government watchdog organization. We have state-based chapters in 25 states with over 800,000 members nationwide. The Illinois chapter of AFP was formed in August of 2006. Currently, AFP-IL has over 20,000 members throughout the state with over 800 members residing in Lake County, Illinois.

We’re focused on sound public policy issues such as fewer taxes, less government, a more transparent and accountable government and more personal freedom. Our mission is pretty simple; AFP-IL educates and empowers citizens to hold their elected officials accountable for how they spend our tax dollars. .

For the past two years, AFP was the leading force behind a bi-partisan effort to pass the first ever, transparency legislation in the state of Illinois. Through all our battles, exposing government waste, filing lawsuits against our state’s governor and senate president, testifying at numerous committee hearings, fighting the efforts of the special interest groups and certain lawmakers who were opposed to government transparency, I am proud to say, that on August 17, 2009, Governor Patrick Quinn signed our transparency legislation (House Bill 35) into law.

House Bill 35 will create the “Illinois Transparency and Accountability Portal (ITAP)” requiring the Department of Central Management Services to create an online searchable web site with information regarding state expenditures, tax credits, state employee salaries, and state contracts.

AFP believes that taxpayers deserve to know how their money is spent. Traditional budget publications are often inaccessible, incomplete and very difficult for ordinary taxpayers to understand. This opaque process creates a perception of bureaucrats funding unnecessary or even corrupt programs. It is incumbent upon government to make proper use of technology to provide transparency in government.

AFP believes that an online database, with technology familiar to most citizens can be used to create accountability and openness. Creating an on-line check register for the Grayslake School District 46 would bear little cost, and would allow spending information to be easily accessible to the public. This is a nonpartisan issue and follows common-sense principles of good government.

Our Founding Fathers believed that the source of America’s greatness was its people, not its government. This led Thomas Jefferson to state the following reflecting on government transparency:

“We might hope to see finances of the Union as clear and as intelligent as a merchant’s books, so that every member of Congress and every man of any mind in the Union should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and consequently control them”

Jefferson’s statement rings true for every level of government, especially here in Illinois. I respectfully encourage the Grayslake School District 46 Board to embrace these concepts and provide your constituents with the open government our Founding Fathers intended.

I look forward to discussing this issue with the Grayslake School District 46 Board at future school board meetings. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact my office if you have any questions and/or concerns.

Sincerely,

Joe Calomino

State Director
Americans for Prosperity
200 S. Wacker, Suite 4000
Chicago, Illinois 606060
312-768-2373 – Office

joe.calomino@afphq.org
www.afpil.org

CC.
Ellen Correll
Keith E. Surroz
Karen L.Weinert
Susan Facklam
Ray Millington
Michael C Linder
Mary Garcia
Michael Carbone

I will continue to update you on the efforts and call for you help in letting the school board members know that we need transparency in their spending. The district is facing cuts of over $2 million dollars again this coming year and we need to know where all the money has gone. How much money was really spent on sending teachers/administrators to Disney World? What other trips have been taken and how much have they cost?

Here are a few past stories of district expenditures:

• D46 ADMIN PAY RAISES? – http://educationmatters.us/2009/05/04/d46-admin-pay-raises/
• GRAYSLAKE ELEMENTARY CUTS 29 JOBS – WHO’S TO BLAME – http://educationmatters.us/2009/03/26/grayslake-elementary-cuts-29-jobs-–-whos-to-blame/
• Grayslake school district employees going to Disney World – http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=334943
• Dist. 46 board says sending group to Disney money well spent – http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=336703
• Money tight? Let’s go to Disney World – http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=335303
• DISTRICT 46 PAID FOR AWARDS – http://educationmatters.us/2008/06/11/district-46-paid-for-awards/
• DISTRICT 46 SUPERINTENDENT ELLEN CORRELL DEFENDS PAYING FOR CONSULTANT WHO GAVE AWARDS – http://educationmatters.us/2008/06/12/district-46-superintendent-ellen-correll-defends-paying-for-consultant-who-gave-awards/

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As I have explained many times before, the school district gets a raise every year that is 5% or CPI, whichever is less. So each December, schools and other taxing bodies levy as much as they can no matter what they actually budget to “maximize their revenue”. This is done whether the community can afford it or not. Watch the video at the Lake County website for more information on the Budget/tax levy cycle & assessment/tax bill process: http://lakecnty.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=266.

The school is already using their typical pass the levy or the cuts will be more drastic. See the following note from another forum:

To see some how the Grayslake High School District 127 has been overtaxing us every year as well see:

• Case study in how school districts overtax
• D127 EXCEEDS AMOUNT APPROVED
• TAXING U AND ME INTO EXTINCTION WHY?
• GRAYSLAKE D127 APPROVES LEVY
• (UPDATED) GRAYSLAKE HIGH SCHOOL LEVY MEETING
• GRAYSLAKE 46 AND 127 OVER DEBT LIMIT

**Note: The forcast shows that D46 will need to make $2.5 million in cuts for the 2010-2011 school year. That number will be $3.5 million if the board votes against a Levy.

If the school district controlled their labor costs better, they would not be in this situation. I have suggestion to them the past 2 contract negotiations that they limit raises to CPI. This would control their labor costs and thus their budget properly.

Here is the board agenda for tonights meeting including contact information for the board members. Please contact them today if you are not going to be able to attend the meeting.

Special Meeting Agenda
Board of Education
Community Consolidated School District 46
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Middle School
7:00 P.M.

A. Call to Order
B. Roll Call
C. Establishment of Quorum
D. Pledge of Allegiance
E. Public Comment
F. Discussion Item:
1. Review of PMA forecasts – Brad
2. Continued discussion of Levy
G. Action Item:
1. Approval of Taxation Hearing Resolutions Items:
• Certificate of Tax Levy
• Resolution Regarding Amounts Necessary to be Levied for the Year 2009
• Certification of Resolution Regarding Amounts Necessary to be Levied for the Year 2009
• Resolution to Levy Certain Special Taxes for Special Education District IMRF Purposes
• Certification of Resolution to Levy Certain Special Taxes for Special Education District
IMRF Purposes
• Resolution to Levy Special Education Tax
• Certification of Resolution to Levy Special Education Tax
• Resolution to Levy Working Cash Tax
• Certification of Resolution to Levy Working Cash Tax
• Resolution Publication Truth and Taxation Notice
• Certification of Resolution Publication Truth and Taxation Notice
H. Adjourn
Thank you for attending the meeting of the Board of Education. You are reminded that these are meetings held
in public but are not public meetings. You are welcome to address the Board during “Public Comment.” You
are asked to limit your remarks to under four minutes. Guidelines for Public Comment are available at each
meeting along with the current agenda. Board members and/or administrators may be contacted to respond to
specific questions at:

Board Members Schools
Michael Carbone 223-3540 ext. 5648 District Office 223-3650
Sue Facklam 548-2930/223-3540 ext 5565 Avon School 223-3530
Mary Garcia 223-3540 ext 5691 Prairieview School 543-4230
Michael Linder 223-3540 ext 5692 Woodview School 223-3668
Ray Millington 223-3540 ext 5678 Meadowview School 223-3656
Keith Surroz 223-3540 ext 5679 Park School 201-7010
Karen Weinert 548-0436/223-3540 ext 5664 Frederick School 543-5300
Middle School 223-3680

The District web site address is www.d46.org

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Please answer the following questions:

* Do you believe in the original meaning and intent of the Constitution?
* Are you tired of the excessive spending?
* Are you tired of the power grabs and other violations of our Constitution?
* Are you worried about our ballooning national debt?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, then please join the Sam Adams Alliance and sign their petition stating you believe in the Constitution. The petition will be sent to both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Tweet the petition and it will be automatically sent to them.

Remember too, that is is our job as citizens to hold our politicians accountable to the Constitution. Government can only do what we allow them to do. Call and visit your elected officials and consider running for office yourself to defend the Constitution.

Please forward this to all your friends, familes and email lists in celebration of the wisdom and foresight of the founding fathers and those that have served and died to protect and defend this great nation and document.

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I have also seen several comments on the local forums about why this President’s address is being politicized. I thought I would address that here. First, he is not the first President to have his intentions questions. President George HW Bush was questioned as well.

In my opinion, Presidents should make encouraging speeches to students. The thing they should not do is politicize it. President Obama politicized this speech when the Dept. of Education sent out curriculum to accompany this speech that was self adulating. This has since been changed once the outcry started. But the damage was done, and the speech itself was then suspect.

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Grayslake Middle School
6 PM

The last community forum information can be found at Live Blogging D46 Community Forum Meeting

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1). Many people in the community would like to become more involved with the School Board and the Schools in D46. Listed as one of the goals of the BOE, is reaching out more to the community. While presenting their SIP Reports, Administrators expressed a need for more parental involvement. Are the Board Members and Administrative staff aware that their demeanor, expressions, and tone, yield feelings of being “unwelcome” and “condescended to”? Would at least 1 Administrator and 1 BOE Member address this and help the Parents at the Forum understand how we can be more involved in discussions with the BOE along with the Administrators at their respective schools?

Ellen Correll – PTO, PTF, Ellen’s Brown Bag lunches, read to children, many opportunities at all of the buildings.
Mary Garcia – if you have problems, go to the Principal. She does. Want to have a good relationship with the community.

2). Would it be possible to review the policies currently in place for student conduct (and consequences) in the classroom, school-grounds, and buses? Would the Policy Committee consider meeting with members of the community and note their suggestions on policy modification?

Ellen – all policies listed in parent handbook and directly relate to Illinois state regulations. Start with principal and contact her if needed.

3). There are reports that the Education Fund has a “surplus”, a “rainy day fund” if you will, of somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million dollars. What is the dollar amount in this fund? You have stated that some programs and personnel were eliminated due to low enrollment; what was the reason for not obtaining the balance of programs and personnel by utilizing a small portion of what is in the Education Fund?

Brad Goldstein – Surplus like a savings account used to pay day to day operations. Showed slide created by PMA showing 3 year spending. PMA, no affiliation with banks. Not in risky investments. 66% form local taxes. Sept. is the highest balance each year. 80% funds go to salaries. Recommnedation is to have 6 month cash on hand. Financial profile score of 4 (slide) showing 180 days on hand. May 4.4 million $ fund balance. Should be used for 1 time expenditure, not sustainable to use for saving jobs. Jobs are recurring revenue.
Shannon Smigielski – Why not take some of the money in savings to rehire some of the staff? PMA showing we are in the red 3 out 4 years except for 2010.
Ellen, Don’t want to spend too much so have to start borrowing.

4). With the State of Illinois in financial straits and D46 having $2.7 million dollars pending payment from the State, what provisions are being made should the monies not be provided as expected?

Brad – on target if State pays its bills. Would utilize fund balance if State did not pay.

5). We submitted the idea of moving toward more paperless options from the schools. The response we received is that paperless options are being looked at.
Please expand on that: Is the technology in place? Has a cost analysis been done to see how much it would cost to put a system in place? How much money will the district save? Have you considered using 1 school or a small group of parents to test a system on? How can the community help this become a reality?

Ellen – Technology is not yet, but are working toward that. Currently looking at virtual backpacks, started central registration, more flyers on website, emails at some schools, online report cards and grades. Want emails from community.
Mary – PTO flyer online for Meadowview.
Sue Facklam – striving to make sure how to reach parents without computers.

6). Have Band/Chorus fees been discussed further or decided on? If the BOE decides that fees for programs will be implemented, will it be in the ‘09/’10 year?

Ellen – tabled for next year, no new fees.

5). With 7 schools in our district, has any research been done on the impact of adding on to some current buildings and selling off other buildings to consolidate fees for property, building, teachers, staff, technology, etc.?

Ellen – ISC building is being emptied and could be sold. Tech moving into disctrict office. Special Needs and curriculum in Avon. Closing and selling a school not an option right now.

6). Are the Park Campus Buildings being used to capacity? If not, how much is not being used? Can you provide the approx. cost for maintaining the un-used portions? What are the plans for filling the buildings to capacity?

Ellen – following Kasarda report (population study). Park is experiencing student growth. May use some special needs to Park next year. All classrooms being utilized at Park.
Shannon – have parents been given opportunity to change schools if a school’s classroom size is higher than a parent wants?
Ellen – that has not been discussed yet.

7). Will you please provide an explanation for purchasing 258 Laptop computers? Could the purchase have been made utilizing less sophisticated laptops, in an effort to reduce cost?
a). We were advised that the BOE Members, Administration, and Tech Dept. have agreed that Tech Hardware Expenses will be way down in the next years to come in order to keep the Ed Fund money to pay for teachers salaries. Are the new Board Members aware of this and can we rely on you to follow through on this “promise”?

Ellen – a lot of new curriculum supplementals require computers. IEP’s must be done on computer, attendance is taken by teachers online.
Joe Nowak – Hadn’t bought computers in about 6 years. Only replaced computers that broke. Laptops for students being pulled out for teachers. 300 machines to labs with first round, 2nd round bought for teachers. They are in the service of students even if in hands of teachers. Joe shopped for computers. Will be training them over the next couple of years on the new technology.
Mary – As a teacher it is frustrating waiting for a computer to boot and be ready to use. Looked at other types of laptops as a part of the tech committee. Cheaper computers don’t allow students to do what they need to do because of less memory.
Sue – Had a tech committee that asked Joe questions. Benchmark needed a laptop 3 yrs old or newer. Joe asked for money to be used from FY09 budget. BOnd money bought from bond money for Frederick and Avon. Park money came out of furniture and supplies.
Shannon – money is still coming from our taxes, when cuts were getting ready to be made. All for getting teachers the needed equipment. Why 258, why not 150 to start? why not 100 to start when teachers are being cut?
Joe – 258 gave every certified teacher a laptop. Took the opportunity when the funds were available. Tech gets cuts when budgets are tough.
Brad – would needed new software, needed additional staff and training staff on if we bought $300 Dells instead of Macs.
Mary – didn’t want to come back in 3 years to buy more computers.
Ellen – NCLB has a goal of being computer literate by 8th grade. Digital Directions – China, India, Korea and Japan priority to make students literate to compete.

8). Will you please explain why the district opted to obtain 38 SMART Boards (when many districts have 1 or none)?
a). Currently, only 5 District Personnel have been formally trained on the SMART Board; What are the Districts plans for further training of those who have not been formally trained?

Mary – has a smart board in her classroom. Cannot do without it. Must have it get students engaged. Works with the education foundation with D46 Foundation. Prairie view has received smart boards from the foundation. It is just a tool allowing the teachers could not do before. can do “hide the answer” for the class. Training was phenomenal. It trained the trainers.

b). Cost of this training?

Ellen – 5 trainers in the district. they will now train

c). What is the lifespan of a SMART Board?

Mary – Software has the lifespan, the board is just a tool like a projector screen.

9). Have the Administrative Salary increases been determined?
a). If yes: By what % per individual?

No

b). If no: When does the BOE foresee this decision being made?

Mary – Hopefully July 8th board meeting

c). Has the BOE considered tying salary increases to CPI with a cap?

Mary – has not been discussed

d). What about Salary Freezes or Decreases?

Has been discussed

10). Is the BOE aware at this time of any upcoming cuts that to be made? (Can the BOE give us any idea on items or areas that will be looked at in the event that more cuts need to be made from us getting less revenues than we have expenses?

Ellen – believe they will have a balanced budget this year.
Sue – talked about cuts in spring, and expect FY10 budget to be balanced and will continue to monitor spending. In Dec, start looking at FY11 budget. Need to commend our Administration for working with the BOE in how these cuts could be made.

11). Why were we caught so completely off guard with the CPI? The economy has been in a recession since late 2007; did the PMA projections in 2007 & 2008 show this?
a). What provisions are being made to make sure we are covered when our housing assessments start to decrease and revenue declines as a result?

Ellen – currently planning on 0.1% CPI. (Assessments aren’t likely to go down – more later on this)
Brad – weren’t completely caught off guard. CPI based on December to December #. There tax $ based on CPI. Typically figure on 2.5%. Starting planning cuts in Decemeber when they knew CPI was 0.1%. 80-90 cuts made in non-human resource ways. PMA – utmost and respected company in school projects. IMRF going up 1% this year, will costs district $60,000. Tax bill did not go down this year. Rolling 3 year avg and hopefully go back up to 2.5%. Look 5 years out. Start talking in Oct. about what programs work or not. Too soon to start talking about next year. “We like status quo in school districts so we can monitor our growth.”

12). Is the Staff Development Budget being reduced for ‘09/10?
a). What % of the projected budget is for travel?
b). Have reductions been made in this area for everyone from administrators, teachers, to non-certified staff? If not, will reductions be made in this area?
c). How much of the Staff Development budget is allocated for Blue Ribbon of Excellence, Inc.? How much of the Superintendent’s Professional Development Account is allocated for Blue Ribbon of Excellence, Inc.?
d). Will any administrator, teacher, or staff member (certified or not) be attending the National Conference in Dec. 2009 @ Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando Florida?

Ellen – (using flip chart) State has requirements for knowledge. $80,000 divided across buildings based on enrollment in each school. Some State funds to be used to PD, some special ed. Example – Title 2A. NCLB – all students must meet or exceed standards by 2014. Have curriculum needs in technology. “How do we move our district from good to great?” Need school improvement not just one student. Why Blue Ribbon – Ellen started it to move from good to great as a school improvement. Needed to know the good and the bad. 9 categories came out the effective schools research. Federal Blue ribbon program uses the same categories as the Blue ribbon schools we use. Listed the 9 categories. We did not go into this to buy awards as stated in the paper. It was worthwhile. Doesn’t feel bad about the expenses. Blue Ribbon information listed on website. Best use of PD money she has ever seen. Used PD money for new curriculum. Jeff Knapp (Woodview) – Blue Ribbon gave them a lot of information on what is working. Created a subcommittee to help go through it to improve. Using the Brain Research to improve. Gave us directions and pieces they needed for each school.
Laura – worked in the school district for 15 years. The evaluations helped us put our priorities in the right place. Very positive and beneficial.
Mary – gave out a gasp when saw the cost of Blue Ribbon. Looked at the Blue Ribbon website. Teachers brought back knowledge. Teachers want to host a Blue Ribbon conference here in Grayslake.
From Handout – Blue Ribbon Categories:

1. Student Focus and Support
2. School Organization and Culture
3. Challenging Standards and Curriculum
4. Active Teaching and Learning
5. Technology Integration
6. Professional Community
7. Leadership and Education Vitality
8. School, Family and Community Partnerships

13). What can the community do to help the Members of the Board? Superintendent? Administrative Staff? Schools?

Mary – need more community support at board meetings. Dry but give a lot of information.
Ellen – need more forums, email her. Do forums 2 or 3 times next year.

Audience Questions (I am paraphrasing):

Sabrina – 2 kids in D46. If a class gets larger, stick a new staff member or assistant in there. What is the difference in keeping staff in an additional classroom?

Lynn- Utilize staff wisely because they can’t do layoffs during the year.

Sabrina – Lost with some homework. Education has changed year to year. Can district provide sources to help with this?

Suggestion noted.

Colleen – Don’t question intent, but would like to know more of the decision process in making purchases like the laptops. Wants more transparency.

Mary – We’ve gone over the issues for many of the questions. What do you need from us to know what was on the agendas?
Colleen – will be more aware. Want to help but not sure where to go.
Keith – Need to be more clear on board agendas. Still your responsibility to look and see what is on the agenda.

Nadia – When are agendas put on website before meeting?

Ellen – posted the Wed. before. Meetings changing to Wed and agenda will be posted on Fri.

Nadia – Can there be feedback after public comment?

Mary – Frustrating to not get answers. Ellen made a committment will right down names and correspond directly.
Sue – try diligently to get back in touch about an issue. Contact us.

Sabrina’s husband – suggest answering question by posting on the website.
Lynn Barkley – Board meetings and agendas on the website.

? – use the individual school PTO as a resource.

? Springer – Have good teachers, but some have been let go. Kids switched classes. What is making schools parent friendly and how does it affect Blue Ribbons and improving schools.

Mary – tough decision, sat with administration to make these decisions. Will be wathcing and have already hired a floater.
Brad – there will be 2 secretaries at Prairie View

Sam – Any thought to getting community feedback in make cuts?

Mary – had several meetings open to the public, very poorly attended.
Sue – All board members here with administration for a special meeting to discuss this.
Shannon S – message did not get out to the community. They would have been here if they had known.
Mary -Will work on better communication with the community. Put it on website, on agendas, PTO presidents knew.

Mark – Business processing for many years. Important to measure for quality. Would you consider re surveying the community if they see the improvements? Can this survey be run yearly.

Mary – will redo survey. will look at the cost.
Karen – how do we get people to take the survey?
Mark – there is free or cheap software you can use.

Pam – will the video be on the site for an extended period of time for others to watch?

Yes

Pam – can we submit more questions for next forum?

Mary – Can email Ellen directly. Shannon can post answers on the Yahoo group. Group can aggregate questions and send on to Ellen

Note: all board members present except Mike Lindner. Ended up having about 80 people in attendance.

1). Many people in the community would like to become more involved with the School Board and the Schools in D46. Listed as one of the goals of the BOE, is reaching out more to the community. While presenting their SIP Reports, Administrators expressed a need for more parental involvement. Are the Board Members and Administrative staff aware that their demeanor, expressions, and tone, yield feelings of being “unwelcome” and “condescended to”? Would at least 1 Administrator and 1 BOE Member address this and help the Parents at the Forum understand how we can be more involved in discussions with the BOE along with the Administrators at their respective schools?

2). Would it be possible to review the policies currently in place for student conduct (and consequences) in the classroom, school-grounds, and buses? Would the Policy Committee consider meeting with members of the community and note their suggestions on policy modification?

3). There are reports that the Education Fund has a “surplus”, a “rainy day fund” if you will, of somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million dollars. What is the dollar amount in this fund? You have stated that some programs and personnel were eliminated due to low enrollment; what was the reason for not obtaining the balance of programs and personnel by utilizing a small portion of what is in the Education Fund?

4). With the State of Illinois in financial straits and D46 having $2.7 million dollars pending payment from the State, what provisions are being made should the monies not be provided as expected?

5). We submitted the idea of moving toward more paperless options from the schools. The response we received is that paperless options are being looked at.
Please expand on that: Is the technology in place? Has a cost analysis been done to see how much it would cost to put a system in place? How much money will the district save? Have you considered using 1 school or a small group of parents to test a system on? How can the community help this become a reality?

6). Have Band/Chorus fees been discussed further or decided on? If the BOE decides that fees for programs will be implemented, will it be in the ‘09/’10 year?

5). With 7 schools in our district, has any research been done on the impact of adding on to some current buildings and selling off other buildings to consolidate fees for property, building, teachers, staff, technology, etc.?

6). Are the Park Campus Buildings being used to capacity? If not, how much is not being used? Can you provide the approx. cost for maintaining the un-used portions? What are the plans for filling the buildings to capacity?

7). Will you please provide an explanation for purchasing 258 Laptop computers? Could the purchase have been made utilizing less sophisticated laptops, in an effort to reduce cost?
a). We were advised that the BOE Members, Administration, and Tech Dept. have agreed that Tech Hardware Expenses will be way down in the next years to come in order to keep the Ed Fund money to pay for teachers salaries. Are the new Board Members aware of this and can we rely on you to follow through on this “promise”?

8). Will you please explain why the district opted to obtain 38 SMART Boards (when many districts have 1 or none)?
a). Currently, only 5 District Personnel have been formally trained on the SMART Board; What are the Districts plans for further training of those who have not been formally trained?
b). Cost of this training?
c). What is the lifespan of a SMART Board?

9). Have the Administrative Salary increases been determined?
a). If yes: By what % per individual?
b). If no: When does the BOE foresee this decision being made?
c). Has the BOE considered tying salary increases to CPI with a cap?
d). What about Salary Freezes or Decreases?

10). Is the BOE aware at this time of any upcoming cuts that to be made? (Can the BOE give us any idea on items or areas that will be looked at in the event that more cuts need to be made from us getting less revenues than we have expenses?

11). Why were we caught so completely off guard with the CPI? The economy has been in a recession since late 2007; did the PMA projections in 2007 & 2008 show this?
a). What provisions are being made to make sure we are covered when our housing assessments start to decrease and revenue declines as a result?

12). Is the Staff Development Budget being reduced for ‘09/10?
a). What % of the projected budget is for travel?
b). Have reductions been made in this area for everyone from administrators, teachers, to non-certified staff? If not, will reductions be made in this area?
c). How much of the Staff Development budget is allocated for Blue Ribbon of Excellence, Inc.? How much of the Superintendent’s Professional Development Account is allocated for Blue Ribbon of Excellence, Inc.?
d). Will any administrator, teacher, or staff member (certified or not) be attending the National Conference in Dec. 2009 @ Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando Florida?

13). What can the community do to help the Members of the Board? Superintendent? Administrative Staff? Schools?

Smigielski said the possibility for further budget cuts and the recent reduction of 29 jobs to save money are two reasons for the heightened desire for a forum. She said she has questions about why the district laid off employees, but spent thousands of dollars on new classroom technology similar to an electronic chalkboard and laptop computers.

Another parent, Laura Yoder, said she wants assurance financial decisions are being made in the best interest of District 46 children.

“I just think it’s really important for the parents and the board to work together, especially in these hard times,” Yoder said.

At the Gurnee-based Woodland district, officials see the community forums as a good way to allow parents and others to informally discuss issues with board members.

I would encourage as many parents as possible to attend the forum if it does happen. Holding it during the summer in al likelihood decreases attendance. I would hope the board decides to continue holding regular forums during the school year. It is time for the district to be more open and actually listen to the residents.

If you are looking for information from the parents perspective, continue to read my blog and I would encourage you to join the new Parents Forum group started on Yahoo that is listed in the comments.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the results Tuesday. They say that only 27 percent of the more than 600 candidates who took the test passed. The test was administered in March of this year.

The teacher’s licensing exam tested potential teachers on their knowledge of elementary school mathematics. This included geometry, statistics, and probability.

To learn more about everyday math read the following links:

• Illinois Loop Math Program Reviews
• Math Curriculum by Town (Grayslake District 46 uses everyday math)
• DANCE OF THE MATH LEMONS
• MATH VIDEOS
• NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF MATHEMATICS: TEACH THE BASICS
• SUCCESS: TEST SCORES NOT DROPPING
• EVERYDAY MATH

District 46 resident Shannon Smigielski said she and other parents want elected board members to host a proper forum so there can be give-and-take on major issues such as spending. Smigielski said the effort has been unsuccessful so far.

“We don’t want to have a ‘their side’ and ‘our side.’ We don’t want there to be such a great divide between the district board and us,” said Smigielski, who estimates she now has about 50 parents involved in an online group for District 46 issues.

District 46 Superintendent Ellen Correll said officials aren’t against having a board forum. Board members tabled discussion on the idea at a meeting Monday, but it may arise in June.

——————————————-
District 46 resident Sharon Hetz said spending and budget cuts would be areas she’d like to address in depth with the school board. Hetz also said she has questions about Blue Ribbon Lighthouse Awards given to two schools by a South Carolina education consultant hired by District 46.

More information on the Blue Ribbon awards the district paid for can be found at the following:

• GRAYSLAKE DIST. 46 PAYS FOR AWARDS
• DISTRICT 46 PAID FOR AWARDS
• DISTRICT 46 SUPERINTENDENT ELLEN CORRELL DEFENDS PAYING FOR CONSULTANT WHO GAVE AWARDS

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Please join other Illinois Bloggers and community liberty leaders Friday.  Register here or contact Emily Zanotti, Director of Web Strategies for the Sam Adams Alliance, at 312-920-0080 ext 314 or Email her at emzanotti@samadamsalliance.org.

I’d like to suggest that the school board freeze pay or at least tie ti to CPI during these economic hard times. Woodland District 50 just froze the pay of their administrators.

Facing revenue declines similar to other suburban school systems, Gurnee-based Woodland Elementary District 50’s top administrators and managers agreed they should take the lead in a cash-conservation effort.

District 50 board President Bruce Bohren announced at a meeting Wednesday night that administration and middle management staff salaries will be frozen at current levels for the 2009-10 academic year. The freezes, and not replacing a departing administrator, are projected to save about $194,600.

“The board of education thanks the district’s leadership team for bringing forth this proposal,” Bohren said. It is appreciated.”

Bohren said the administrators and middle managers also won’t be eligible for bonuses, merit awards or other additional cash compensation for the next school year. He said the lone exception to the salary freeze is an assistant superintendent of support services who will receive a pay hike of less than 1 percent under a special retirement contract.

For more information on recent job cuts in the district, please read GRAYSLAKE ELEMENTARY CUTS 29 JOBS – WHO’S TO BLAME

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• Avon
• Grayslake Middle School
• Meadowview
• Grayslake High School
• Illinois Schools

Energy costs are the latest area where Grayslake Elementary District 46 officials want to make significant cuts.

District 46 isn’t alone in trying to hold the line or reduce its electricity tab. School districts based in the Mundelein area, Hanover Park and Carpentersville are among those looking at wind turbines and other ways to slice expenses.

—————————————
Michael Linder, District 46 board president, suggested the district solicit three companies to perform “first-class” energy audits and then offer a contract to the one offering the best price for services.

Linder said the district might even be able to make extra money by renting roof space to a company that’s interested in producing solar power.

District 46 already has taken steps toward cutting its energy costs by lowering temperatures to 70 degrees early each evening. That move is projected to save about $9,000.

My first suggestion to save on costs is actually bid on services instead of the no-bid processes used in the past for energy, waste management and healthcare. To read more about the No-bid energy process see the following:

• Illinois Energy Consortium
• IUPC ENERGY CONSORTIUM UPDATE
• UPDATE ON NO-BID ENERGY CONTRACTS
• ILLINOIS ENERGY CONSORTIUM
• D46 AND D127 NO-BID ENERGY CONTRACTS
• ENERGY CONSORTIUM UPDATE
• SCHOOL ENERGY CONSORTIUM COLLECTING MILLIONS

To read about other spending cuts recently see: GRAYSLAKE ELEMENTARY CUTS 29 JOBS – WHO’S TO BLAME

Incumbent Tom Meskel is a strong member of the board who is both fiscally conservative and an innovator willing to explore creative ideas, such as a wind farm that can generate revenue and be a learning tool used in science classes.

———————————————–
Halloran has two sons at Grayslake Central and has been heavily involved in the Colts football organization.

Halloran is endorsed because, as more of students’ education needs are linked to technology, the board would benefit from his technical expertise. Halloran also is a fiscal conservative who is dedicated to finding ways to bring more technology into the classroom without asking for more taxpayer money. Neither Russell Chamberlin nor Suzanna Swanson, the two remaining candidates, chose to participate in the endorsement process so they cannot be endorsed.

You can read more about current board member, Tom Meskel in past articles here. I would not consider Meskel a fiscal conservative given past votes for exceeding voter approved referendums, debt limits and the high bid for artificial turf.

Declining tax revenue caused by the recession was cited as the main reason for eliminating 29 positions at Grayslake Elementary District 46 for the 2009-10 academic year.

————————————————-
Board members voted 6-1 in favor of the staffing reductions, with Mark Hannan as the lone dissenter.

District 46 officials have taken a number of measures to plug a budget deficit of at least $2.3 million for next school year. The staff reductions were part of an overall budget-reduction package tentatively pegged at $2.8 million.

————————————————-
Among the 29 full- and part-time positions eliminated were general and special education teachers, clerical staffers, a psychologist and program assistants.

Last fall the district signed a contract giving teachers somewhere in the neighborhood of 4% raises. By giving into the teachers’ union demands for such large raises in these poor economic times the district had no choice but to make these cuts to personnel. This was a sound financial district instead of going to the taxpayers to gouge them in a referendum. The problem though was self inflicted and could have been prevented last fall by standing strong and only allowing raises that matched CPI. If they had done so, nearly every one these jobs could have been saved. If you want to complain about the cuts, remember it was caused by the teachers’ unions demands for raises that far outstripped CPI.

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A judge has ordered a mom to place her three home-schooled children in public school – even though the kids were excelling.

North Carolina Judge Ned Mangum told Venessa Mills, who was in the middle of a divorce battle, that public school will “challenge the ideas you’ve taught them.”

Robyn Williams, a fellow homeschool mom and former public school teacher, is frustrated by the judge’s order and worries about the rights of other home-schooling families.

“The judge clearly disregarded all of the evidence and decided to legislate from the bench,” she said. “My friend, Venessa Mills, just had her right to home school stripped away.

This is just the beginning of many more attacks on home schooling. Each year, there are more and more attempts at regulations to make the choice of home schooling nearly impossible for many. Without a diligent home school community and people who believe in parental rights, these attacks will become more successful. Watch your legislators; find local and state wide homes school groups; signup for alerts from the Home School Legal Defense Association; find parental rights groups like ParentalRights.org; get involved protecting your rights.

There will be a rally at the State Capital on March 24 in support of home schooling. Please share this with other North Carolinas homes schoolers.

The first is HB 3743, “ILLINOIS VIRTUAL SCHOOLS”:

Synopsis: Creates the Illinois Virtual School Act. Establishes the Illinois Virtual School as a statewide virtual school to serve Illinois students in kindergarten through grade 12 and Illinois teachers and other educators, to be funded through an annual State appropriation to meet the operation and capital needs of the Illinois Virtual School. Sets forth provisions concerning fees, accountability, online courses, access and equity, a Board of Trustees, the powers of the Board, and the transition from the existing State Board of Education program. Effective immediately.

This bill has language specifically stating home schoolers. This is a dangerous step for home schoolers since they are classified as private or non-public schools in all other state laws.

The second bill is HB 2248 allows a school district to have a remote education program.

Amends the School Code. Allows a school district, by resolution of its school board, to establish a remote educational program. Defines “remote educational program” as an educational program delivered to students in the home or other location outside of a school building that meets specified criteria. Provides that days of attendance by students in a remote educational program may be claimed by the school district and shall be counted for general State aid purposes in accordance with the State aid formula provisions of the Code. Effective immediately.

The troubling part of this bill below:

(6) The remote educational program is at all times under the direct supervision of a parent, guardian, or other responsible adult identified in the approved remote educational plan. The parent, guardian, or other responsible adult may engage only in non-teaching duties not requiring instructional judgment or the evaluation of students. The parent, guardian, or other responsible adult shall be designated by the school district as non-teaching personnel or volunteer personnel.

If you see these bills as a danger to home schools please contact members of the
Elementary & Secondary Education Committee.

• The Bible will be taught, faith will be shared and children will be encouraged to receive the life transforming message of the Gospel and Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
• Teaching Biblical values, morals, standards, and Biblical world-view
• Christian standards – dress, conversation, conduct – on and off campus
• Christian-Bible based education
• Quality education in a loving, safe environment
• Working with parents
• Non-denominational
• Open for Christians and non-Christians
• K-8th grade
• Christian, born-again, Bible believing, qualified teachers
• We will hire teachers based on enrollment / need.
• If teachers are not certified, they will be working towards it. However the emphasis will be on their ability to love, relate and teach and not on State certification.
• Tuition will be $4,800/year
• Class room size, student/teacher ratio, mixed or single classes will be determined by the enrollment.
• ABEKA curriculum will be used across the board which prepares kids to be able to read before they finish kindergarten and academically keeps an average child a grade or two ahead of the average student. We KNOW this is a good curriculum because we have used it successfully to put our own two children through high school with very satisfying results.

The board set aside $500,000 for classroom improvements for art and the band-choir students at Grayslake Central, and plan to convert a surplus classroom into a science lab at the Grayslake North campus.

School Board President Mike Hutchins said the district is soliciting bids to install synthetic turf on the Grayslake North football field, estimated to cost $1.1 million.

Mike Zelek, associate superintendent for business affairs, said the natural- turf field at Grayslake North has a severe drainage problem that makes the field unsafe, and even unusable at times after heavy rain.

About two years ago, the board spent about $1 million on synthetic turf for the Grayslake Central football field. That project was deemed a huge success.

It will be interesting to watch the bidding process for the synthetic turf. When the district purchased for Grayslake Central they manipulated the standards to ensure awarding the contract to the highest bidder.

Secondly, why are there drainage problems at Grayslake North. Whoever designed the field just a few short years ago appears to have been derelict in their duties or at least not very good at engineering design. Why was there no warranty when the field was put in? Is the same architect firm handling this bidding process?

Excess space will also be turned into a science lab. Again, this is a new school. Where was the planning? What was the architect firm doing? Why are we taxpayers having to pay for work a second time due to poor planning by the school district and/or the architects? It is obvious our taxpayer money is being wasted.

Grayslake Elementary $813,000
Grayslake High School $336,000

These estimates can be found on page 13 of the pdf found at the Education and Labor website. You can find your Illinois school district estimate there as well. Estimates for other states can be found here.

In addition, districts can apply for innovation grants. There is $5 billion dollars available. Below is an overview:

The innovation fund is part of the $5 billion from the state stabilization fund that will go to the education department and Secretary Arne Duncan, who will award incentive and innovation grants. The innovation fund is worth $650 million. The recipients of the innovation funds will be local school districts, or a partnership between a nonprofit and one or more school districts or a nonprofit and a consortium of schools. These awards will be given out based on districts or other eligible entities that have made gains in closing the achievement gap, according to the law. School districts must also have met annual state performance measures for at least two years in a row, demonstrate academic achievement improvement for all groups of students, and make progress in a host of other things (graduation rate, high-quality teachers.) The districts must also demonstrate that they can get matching funds through partnerships with the private sector. Secretary Duncan has said he wants to use these awards, and the entire $5 billion fund, to push the “reform agenda.” If you want to read the language, go to page 438 of this very large PDF of the stimulus bill.

We have some exciting news to share with you. After praying for several years about it, we feel like God is leading us to start a good, solid Christian school (K-8th grade) where the children can receive a good, quality education in a safe, loving, Christian environment. We love children and would like to partner with you in investing in them, teaching/training them Biblically and preparing them for real life, for the future. This will be a non-denominational school, open to ALL. As we try to discern God’s will and the level of interest in the community, we will have a -

Community Interest Meeting

SUNDAY – MARCH 1st – 3 p.m
LINDEN VILLA BAPTIST CHURCH
38869 N Deep Lake Rd
Lake Villa, IL
(847) 245-7471

House Bill 643 and House Bill 1097 are scheduled to be heard in the Revenue and Finance Committee tomorrow. If these bills pass, it would increase the education expense credit to 50% (instead of 25%) of qualified education expenses. In addition, the bill increases the maximum amount of the education expense credit that home educators can receive from $500 to $1,000.

Your calls to the Revenue and Finance Committee members are needed to get these bills passed.

Action Requested:

1. Please call the committee members and give them this message:

“Please vote for House Bill 643 and House Bill 1097, both of which increase the maximum education expense credit from $500 to $1,000. It will empower parents to choose the best education for their children.”

Revenue and Finance Committee Member list:

Chairperson John E. Bradley (D) – 217-782-1051
Vice-Chairperson Frank J. Mautino (D) – 217-782-0140
Bob Biggins (D) – 217-782-6578
Suzanne Bassi (R) – 217-782-8026
Mark H. Beaubien (R) – 217-782-1517
Linda Chapa LaVia (D) – 217-782-1002
Barbara Flynn Currie (D) – 217-782-8121
Roger L. Eddy (R) – 217-782-1040
LaShawn K. Ford (D) – 217-782-5962
Careen M. Gordon (D) – 217-782-5997
Ed Sullivan, Jr. (R) – 217-782-3696
Arthur L. Turner (D) – 217-782-8116
Michael J. Zalewski (D) – 217-782-5280

The largest Home School Conference in the midwest takes place in Cincinatti, OH April 16^th-18^th. For more details click the links below:

• Huge vendor exhibitors
• Schedule
• Incredible speakers
• Sessions & Workshops – there will even be a Teen Track this year.
• Affordable Registration Costs

You will also notice in the job postings that the district has finally added the responsibilities of the Directory of technology position. Click Show/Hide beside Additional Information. There is still no pay range or qualifications posted. The board is continuing to hide details from the public and can easily still hire Mr. Wright at a later date. I will reiterate my suggestions for ensuring transparency and the new director does not have a cloud of suspicion on them:

• Post all candidates resumes on the district website
• Interview all candidates in public
  • Have a first round of written questions/answers open to the public
  • Hold all second round of interviews on 1 day
  • Seclude candidates so they cannot hear the others answers
  • Interview each candidate in open session

• Meetings held monthly on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday
• Meetings will be held during the day (8-11 or 12-3) with both K-5 and 5-8 both on the same day (5th grade members will be in both sessions
• Textbooks to review will be chosen byt the committees, but must meet school guidelines
  • Student Area Committees
  • Governance of Student Learning
  • Long Range Plan

One observation here is that all the meetings are during the day. This eliminates many very qualified people from helping with this and other committees. The reviews are setup to make it easy for teachers and not the community. How many qualified people with real world math experience will take off half a day or a whole day per month to help with this effort?

Wright had been volunteering at the district for the previous three or four years helping to upgrade the district’s technology, and also has kept the board apprised of technology upgrades as needed, Gallichio said.

“I realized that Todd was not running for re-election in April, and Todd guided us through the all of the technology upgrades at this district on a volunteer basis,” she said. “With technology constantly upgrading, the board felt it was important to bring back this director position for the good of the school district.”

————————–
Board members did confirm, however, Wright stepped down rather than leaving after the April election, to apply for the IT director position.

Board officials also confirmed Wright has been interviewed for the position, though would not say if he is the front-runner.

The board still does not have a salary range for the position, yet were set to give Mr. Wright the job Monday night. There was also no job requirements on the application website. Despite the lack of requirements and salary, the board was ready to hire one of their own.

This situation demonstrates why transparency is absolutely necessary at every level of government. The job was recommended by the school board member who wanted the job. It was posted right before Christmas. The position was not announced in the News-Sun until January 13^th. this was when the agenda was posted for the board meeting Monday night.

I have called the Superintendent and left a message along with emailing him and the school board. I have yet to get a response from either. Why is the board remaining silent on this issue? this is especially troublesome now that this situation is being watched closely by district residents and the media.

This also shows why there needs to be watchdogs at every level of governing body meetings. If it hadn’t been for a district resident becoming aware of the situation and alerted the media and other district residents the school board would have easily hired a school board member and there would have been virtually nothing the residents of the district could have done about it.

This position has been open for several years. There really is no reason to rush into the hiring before new school board members are seated in April. In fact, waiting until April or later will also increase the number of candidates who may apply. School districts tell employees at this level by the end of March whether their contracts will be renewed. This timing also allows anyone interested in the position that is currently at another school district to complete the school year before starting in BIg Hollow. All of this increases the number of applicants.

Even though the school board reopened the process, they could still go through the process and hire Mr. Wright regardless of the other candidates who apply. This process should be done in the open. A couple of suggestions on how to handle this are the following:

• Post all candidates resumes on the district website
• Interview all candidates in public
  • Have a first round of written questions/answers open to the public
  • Hold all second round of interviews on 1 day
  • Seclude candidates so they cannot hear the others answers
  • Interview each candidate in open session

By handling the process in the open it will show an openness. If not, any person who finally is hired will be tainted with hints of secrecy and a corrupt process.

The new director-level position was never discussed or introduced at a school Board meeting prior to December 15. Citing recent financial hardships, the Board has repeatedly voted down community supported staffing such as a school nurse and other areas of genuine need. Since the school already employs a well-regarded and reputable IT person, the immediate need for a director level role is a previously unidentified need.

• The position was recommended by one of the School Board members via a confidential report (to the Board) to bolster the case for the new position. The recommending School Board member has a background in Technology and is currently unemployed. The recommending School Board member then recused himself from personnel discussions related to the position due to his own desire to apply. In short, he wishes to apply for the job that he just created.
• The job position was posted the following day on the school website (December 16th) without a job description, experience/educational requirements, or any list of tasks and responsibilities. Nonetheless, the Board appears prepared to take action and approve a candidate for hiring at the January 19th meeting. Clearly, the job ideation, job posting, interviewing and possible fulfillment of a director level position in less than 30 days (including holiday break) is a breathtaking achievement for the Big Hollow School Board. While the public had no idea that a Director of Technology was so screamingly urgent, the board seems prepared to hire one of their own. In fact, a board member is set to resign at Monday night meeting.

I have emailed the school board and superintendent with questions about this situation. I have also called and had to left a message for Superintendent Pazanin. I have not received a response from the district about this situation.

If all of this information is substantiated, it again shows the arrogance of the elected officials to feel like they are a protected class and should receive personal perks just for being elected.

A similar situation occurred in Huntley District 158 back in 2006 when they created a position and then hired a fellow board member to the position for $101,000.

Trust with the community is something that is hard to come by for Big Hollow as shown by this current act of arrogance and their threatening style to get their referendum passed and violated the Open Meetings Laws in the process. Read about those tactics in the following articles:

• Big Hollow Information
• Big Hollow Wants Your Money
• Big Hollow After Your Wallets Again
• Big Hollow Cuts Art and Music

• Math Committees at Grayslake Elementary Schools
• How should District 46 communicate with the community?
  

  Grayslake Elementary District 46 board members Monday night discussed the pros and cons related to sending fliers and other written materials to parents. Some board members said the district can keep down costs by making available a majority of materials online, but concerns later arose about those who don’t have computer access. Board member Susan Facklam said while she has access to a computer, she prefers hard copies of District 46 communiqués. Board members also have been mulling the idea of sending a brochure to residents with District 46 information. Superintendent Ellen Correll presented the board with brochures from other suburban school districts. District 46 board members asked Correll to provide cost information about the other schools’ materials.

• District 46 looking to trim costs
  

  Grayslake Elementary District 46 is seeking ways to cut expenses because of a possible decrease in tax revenue.

  District 46 Superintendent Ellen Correll floated tentative ideas at a meeting Monday night, which included something as simple as eliminating color printing on copy machines to save $100,000 annually.
  

  ————————————————-
  Previous estimates have shown District 46 is on pace for a $2 million revenue shortfall in the 2009-10 academic year, which is why the spending cutbacks are being discussed.

  They are facing a deficit and yet gave teachers guaranteed raises for the next 3 years instead of tying raises to CPI. I have previously made suggestion on how to cut spending, like competitive bidding on utilities and healthcare instead of consortiums that may actually be costing them more than need be.

• Round Lake Beach grade school principal removed from job – The principal who was supposedly removed for performance issues is put in charge of setting up a financial system for the district when they already have problems paying teachers and staff the correct amount.
• Prairie Crossing Schools
  • Prairie Crossing Charter School studying teachers’ pay
    

    Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake is paying for a compensation study in the wake of reports its teachers are upset about not making enough money.
    

    —————————————
    “While those (Woodland and Fremont) districts have escalated teachers’ salaries by at least 5 percent each year over recent history, we have not,” Dagley wrote to Prairie Crossing’s board

    But Dagley said class sizes are larger at the Woodland and Fremont schools. He said Prairie Crossing also has classroom teacher assistants, a rarity at most public schools, and that he informs prospective employees about the school’s lower pay scale.

  • Lake Co. school board has reminder of breaking law for next 4 months
    

    An illegal closed-door discussion that Prairie Crossing Charter School board members had wanted to keep secret instead will remain quite public for the next four months.

    Board members at the Grayslake elementary school approved an agreement with the Lake County state’s attorney’s office to make public a transcript of the chatter that violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act on July 29.

    Prairie Crossing’s Web site will feature passages that violated the Open Meetings Act through April.

    Board members agreed in October to the Open Meetings Act violation deal with the state’s attorney’s office. It isn’t publicly known how the improper closed-door talk came to the attention of Lake County prosecutors.

News from schools around the country:

• Teacher allegedly seduces boy, 13
• Warren school expansion may include offices – They passed a referendum to expand school facilities and are now looking to use part of the money for administration facilities.
• Principal: Poor kids ‘kicked out’ to make room for rich
• Chicago Public Schools’ cappuccino bill: $67,000
• School official says strip-search ‘never justified’
• School district mum on candidates
• Detroit School Lacks Toilet Paper, Light Bulbs
• Fayette schools ask teachers to give back raise – This would have to be unanimous by all County Employees so this is just a public relations stunt.

Kindergarten – 5^th grade
5^th grade – 8^th grade

Members of the community who would like to serve on a committee should send a letter of intent to Lynn Barkley by Jan. 23.

Be sure to include any past experience on curriculum or professional development committees, or what you feel you could bring to this committee.

Letters should be sent to Community Consolidated School District 46, Attn: Assistant Superintendent Lynn Barkley, 565 Frederick Road, Grayslake, IL 60030.

For more information, call, (847) 223-3650.

Please do not send them an email. Emails are too easily lost and you want to guarantee receipt.

For more information on the adoption cycle, visit “Curriculum Development and Textbook Adoption Cycle“. Their list of texts used can be found here. Currently, the curriculum is known as Everyday Math/Chicago Math/New Math. I have several examples of what this curriculum teaches can be found at these previous articles:

• Dance of the Math Lemons
• Why a Dad Wrote a Math Book
• Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth
• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Teach the Basics
• ‘Innovative’ Math, but Can You Count?
• Everyday Math
• Illinois Loop Information on Everyday Math
  • Issues in Math Education
  • http://www.illinoisloop.org/mathdist.html
  • Reviews on specific math programs and curricula

In addition, it is time to consider running for school board. Deadline for Registration to be on the ballot is Jan. 19^th – Jan. 26^th. For more information you can stop by the district offices or print the forms directly from the Lake County Web site. Here are those links for you convenience.

• Candidate’s Guide (School board – page 50)
• Petition Packet
• Other Election Information

Running for local school board is the best way to try and slow the increase in your property taxes. School districts usually get 65-75% of the property taxes you pay each year.

Blue asks some very important questions in his article:

• why would a school emphasize “Fairness” over “Mathematics” or “Economics”?
• how successful is this school in accomplishing the goals for which most taxpayers assume their money is being spent – educating our children?
• when a school with such performance publicly trumpets for months to the community they are emphasizing “Fairness” instead of “Education”, I can only ask, “How is that fair to the students entrusted to them and to the taxpayers paying for it all?
• Don’t we deserve better?
• when can we fairly expect to see it delivered?

This school is just another example of how the public government schools are indoctrinating the children of this country instead of educating them. Why do you think the NEA, AFT and Government Officials don’t want school choice? If parents could actually choose a good education for their children, they wouldn’t support the never ending tax increases for the government employees and their outrageous pensions. Those who don’t support school choice are protecting a government monopoly at the expense of the children who are forced to remain in failing public schools like Napier Elementary.

I have emailed the principal of the school the following questions:

What curriculum do you use for math?
What is your language curriculum?
What types of lesson plans do you use to teach fairness?

For those of you who do not know Arne Duncan, he is the Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools. He has no qualms about indoctrinating his students and using them as pawns to lobby for more education money at the taxpayer expense. Below are my past stories about him:

• Chicago Public School Tax Curriculum – Curriculum used to indoctrinate students before using them as political pawns
• Taxpayer funded rally in Springfield – Arne Duncan using students as political pawns./li>
• Springfield Rally: How Much Did It Cost The Taxpayer?
• Exploiting NCLB With Social Promotion – Arne Duncan indoctrinating students at taxpayer expense
• Playboy Sex-Ed – Arne Duncan and the comprehensive sex ed curriculum in Chicago Public Schools
• Giving Chicago Schools an Extra $300 Million Is Hurtful – The title is self explanatory

• Candidate’s Guide
• Petition Packet

Running for local school board is the best way to try and slow the increase in your property taxes. School districts usually get 65-75% of the property taxes you pay each year.

UPDATE: The Daily Herald has posted an article about this as well, here.

CCSD 46 NOTICE: 11/01/08
Tentative agreement reached at Grayslake District 46

Negotiating teams for the Grayslake Federation of Teachers and the Community Consolidated School District 46 Board of Education have reached an agreement after seven hours of bargaining on November 1, 2008. A federal mediator was present overseeing the mediation session and was responsible for proposing the eventual agreement.

“Both parties made compromises today to reach this settlement” said Diane Elfering, president of the Grayslake Federation of Teachers.

The Grayslake paraprofessional unit which represent office staff, program assistants, custodial personnel, and other non-certified employees at CCSD 46 are still bargaining.

Sue Facklam, vice president of the CCSD 46 Board of Education and member of the Board’s negotiating team, stated “We are pleased with the outcome of today’s mediation session.”

Details of the teacher agreement will be released at a future date.

Watch the CCSD 46 website for more information.

I did ask several other questions that could not be answered. One was whether the contract offer from the district was actually 3.25% as stated in the Daily Herald (comment #124). This comment also stated the teachers union wanted 5.5%. Here is the relevant portions of the comment below.

Most of the teachers don’t want to go on strike. My mom is one of them. one reason is that the board is offering 3.25% raise a year for 3 years. While the union wants 5.5% a year for 3 years. The boards offer is very fair. The teachers want the boards offer, but the union doesn’t. Another reason is that they have many pregnant teachers at the school this year. When you go on strike your medical benefits are suspended. This is not good at all for someone who is expecting. Today they told the administration that they would be leaving at the contracted time of 3:20 instead of waiting around to monitor the halls to make sure your children didn’t get hurt or into fights. But the administration decided to release the kids 5 mins early. The union rep got on the speaker and told the teachers to leave as well.

If this comment is true, then the board has made a more than reasonable offer given our current economic times while the union and the teachers who voted in favor of the the intent strike are being unreasonable to the district and the taxpayers who pay their salaries.

The teachers deserve respect for their profession, but they also must respect the taxpayers. If they want to be fair to all, then the union and board would agree to tie the salary increases to CPI. This would allow the teachers to given a guaranteed raise each year, while virtually guaranteeing there would not be a need for an Education Fund referendum. This is because the schools already get an increase in tax revenue every year equal to the lesser of 5% or CPI.

As you can see from my previous article, that average TRS compensation has risen at a higher rate than CPI:

Here is some background information on the raises Grayslake District 46 teachers have received on average since 1999. This was calculated using the TRS compensation data from the Champion

1998/99-1999/00 - 6.89%
1999/00-2000/01 - 7.63%
2000/01-2001/02 - 7.41%
2001/02-2002/03 - 7.83%
2002/03-2003/04 - 8.17%
2003/04-2004/05 - 6.10%
2004/05-2005/06 - 6.95%
2005/06-2006/07 - 3.67%

*UPDATE: I inadvertently used the year of the data as the start of the school year instead of the end of the school year. Years above reflect this Fiscal Year change. This does not affect the average increase percentage in TRS Compensation

Methodology:

• Match on teacher name between years
• Only full time teachers included
• Averaged: (current year compensation – previous year compensation) / previous year compensation
• Issues: Teacher names changed sometimes in the yearly records. These were excluded for now. Only used exact matches.

From the Daily Herald:

A union statement read: “The district chose to ignore the federal mediator’s warning that it was not abiding to ‘generally accepted bargaining principles’ regarding the calculation of its salary schedules.”

————————————
The union contends the district has more than enough money in its education fund to grant the teachers pay increases. Since June 2005, the education fund balance has grown from $6.3 million to $10.5 million in June 2008, a union statement read.

“The raise these teachers are asking for is very fair and will not erode the surplus in the educational fund,” Mistry-Mujthaba said.

Linder said those fund balance numbers are inaccurate, though he did not know the actual amount of the surplus.

From the News-Sun:

In a union statement issued following Monday’s meeting, officials said “teachers overwhelmingly voted” for the strike authorization.

The statement added that “at the most recent mediation session on Oct. 22, talks broke down over the salary schedule when the district was unable to provide salary schedules (that) were accurately calculated.”

Here is some background information on the raises Grayslake District 46 teachers have received on average since 1999. This was calculated using the TRS compensation data from the Champion

1998/99-1999/00 - 6.89%
1999/00-2000/01 - 7.63%
2000/01-2001/02 - 7.41%
2001/02-2002/03 - 7.83%
2002/03-2003/04 - 8.17%
2003/04-2004/05 - 6.10%
2004/05-2005/06 - 6.95%
2005/06-2006/07 - 3.67%

*UPDATE: I inadvertently used the year of the data as the start of the school year instead of the end of the school year. Years above reflect this Fiscal Year change. This does not affect the average increase percentage in TRS Compensation

Methodology:

• Match on teacher name between years
• Only full time teachers included
• Averaged: (current year compensation – previous year compensation) / previous year compensation
• Issues: Teacher names changed sometimes in the yearly records. These were excluded for now. Only used exact matches.

An interesting note to this, during the 2003/04 – 2004/05, it has been claimed by some that teachers did not get a raise (See comments at original Daily Herald Story). It was then changed to “they kept the same salary schedule”. Either way, from the numbers above, the teachers were still getting very nice raises during that time. If you remember, this was the time when the district was cutting programs like music, art and gym among other things while crying poor to the public and trying to pass a referendum. When a new board was elected in spring 2005, they turned the district around financially without a referendum.

These are some of the benefits the 2005 – 2008 contract provides the teachers (More later):

• 16 days sicktime which can be accrued to a max of 200 days
• 7.5 hour workdays including lunch period
• Extra duty pay for working lunch

Related to teachers unions are the following past articles:

• Are Public School Teachers Underpaid?
• Force Political Contributions
• Teacher Raises Higher than Taxpayers
• Open Contract Negotiations?
• Greedy People or Greedy System
• Tyranny of The Minority
• Should Teachers Be Allowed to Strike?

They asked parents to volunteer to lead after-school programs in drawing, painting, handcrafts, dancing, sports, cheerleading and chess.

“Kids would be interested in after-school programs and it would keep their minds off gangs,” explained Marissa Juarez, 11. “It would keep them inside and safe.”

The fifth-graders also may have hit on just what they need to help them heal from the effects of urban violence.

The physical, social and artistic outlets kids urged are among the coping mechanisms experts recommend for those touched by violence. Similar activities are used with children in war-torn countries.

I will agree that kids need recess. My question is why did the kids themselves have to come up with a solution? Why didn’t the teachers and administrators come up with a solution to have recess? The answer is simple, teachers and administrators are constrained by teacher union contracts and the need to make it appear they are in need of more money to pay for these basic programs. They are part of a government monopoly that has no incentive to innovate. They can just sit back and cry poor anytime parents and other question them.

Our public government schools are setup to thwart accountability. They prove this day after day with stories of corruption, pay to play, exhorbitant pensions, extravagant perks, over taxation, no bid contracts, and over spending.

Remember everyone, when the schools start crying poor, it is just a game to get more money. very little of that additional money will actually be used to help education.

Warren Township High School officials would cut their tax rate if voters grant permission to borrow $30 million, mostly for expansion of the Almond Road upperclassmen campus. Supporters say this is a good deal. But opponents doubt taking out a $30 million construction loan would ultimately reduce costs for taxpayers. They also question why a majority on the Gurnee-based Warren District 121 board agreed to allow tax bills to fall only if the ballot measure passes Nov. 4.

Why do school districts become so arrogant whenever they want to take more money from the taxpayers? They come up with more and more ways to threaten the voters in passing the referendum.

Grant High school district last year used the same tactics the forest preserve is using this year, “Vote Yes and we won’t raise your taxes”.

The forest preserve supporters have sent out 4 flyers now trying to get a yes vote. How much have they spent on this effort. Instead of sending out flyers, why don’t they donate the money to the forest preserve instead. At least the last flyer did say a NO vote would lower your taxes.

See Ballotpedia for more local referendums.

Negotiations will be continuing and a federal mediator will be helping with negotiaions starting Nov. 1.

I’ll have more information later this weekend or early next week.

I have confirmed that this same book is being used by Grayslake District 46 as well. I spoke with the District’s Curriculum Coordinator, Lynn Barkley, this morning. Ms. Barkley informed me they would not be teaching the section with Barack Obama until week 19 which would come after the election. In addition, the district would also use commensurate material about John McCain now that they have been notified and recognize the political sensitivity of this material. She has also notified the Principals of schools about this book and the concerns as well. I applaud the district for this step.

My 8th grade son is in an advanced English class at a public middle school here in Racine, Wisconsin. I just found out that my son’s new (copyright 2008) Wisconsin – McDougal Littell Literature book has 15 pages covering Barack Obama.

I was shocked – No John McCain, no Hillary Clinton, no George Bush – Just Barack Obama. I’m wondering how it is that Obama’s story gets put into an 8th grade literature book? It would be one thing, if it was just the tidbit about his boyhood days, but 15 pages, and they talk about his “Life of Service”. Honestly, what has Obama really done to be included in this book? Not only that, but on page 847 there is a photo of Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention with at least 8 Obama signs in the background! Front & center is an www.obama2004.com sign.

Now I understand that many teachers are liberals, but does the school have the right to shove Obama down our kid’s throats? All the kids grouped together and read the story. After that, they discussed it… I guess it appears that Obama is planning ahead. If he doesn’t get his coveted Presidency, Obama is going to make sure, that the younger generations know all about him, and his “life of service”.

If you would like to see the 15 page story on Obama, it appears that you can order this book online. There is a note in the book that says, For more on Barack Obama, visit the Literature Center at www.ClassZone.com The book is: Wisconsin – 8th grade – McDougal Littell Literature – copyright 2008. The Obama story starts on page 830. I hope you will take the time to look at this book. I’m really angry about this – In fact, I would love to rip the pages right out of this book.

This book was written and adopted before he had made history of becoming the first African-American nominated by a major political party. You can read the procedure for curriculum adoption here. It will be used for several years.

Ms. Barkley also provided me the response form the publisher, McDougall Littell. It is provided below for everyone to read.

Currently, a number of bloggers have been asking questions about selections found in the 2008 edition of McDougal Literature 8th Grade. As you know, the 2008 edition includes excerpts from Barack Obama’s 2004 Out of Many, One speech and his book, Dreams From My Father. These passages were selected by our editors in 2005 as an example of the telling of life stories and how such stories influence the individual’s work.

The process by which textbooks are published is a long one. The 2008 edition was edited in 2005 and published in 2007, before Barack Obama began his campaign for the presidency. Because Holt McDougal wants to eliminate any mistaken impression that the company or its customers endorse or support a specific political campaign, all Obama references are being removed from subsequent editions of Holt McDougal Literature including the most recently published McDougal Littell Literature Florida and California editions, copyright 2009.

We recognize that many customers use the 2008 edition and will continue to do so for several more academic years. We remain confident that this edition provides a wide range of content designed to encourage student interest in learning and offer all students relevant, interesting content. That said, there are significant resources, including those available online from Holt McDougal, that can be used to supplement or substitute for this section, should a district, school, or teacher deem it appropriate. Ultimately, the final decision on instructional content must be left with our educators.”

Greg Long
Senior Vice President, Marketing
Holt McDougal

Tera Ryan
Holt McDougal Sales Representative
Illinois
Boone, Dupage, Jo Daviess, Lake, McHenry, Stephenson, Winnebago Counties

UPDATE: The Daily Herald wrote a story about this today. The link to it can be found here. The story claims I was the only person who contacted the district. This is not accurate. I know of others who contacted the district and still more that have contacted me personally.

• Real Debate Wisconsin has been notified that the Racine Unified School District is using a text book that contains a 15 page love-fest for Obama
• The Creative Arts Charter School in San Francisco took 18 first-graders to the same-sex marriage of its teacher.
• Youth at a Charter School in Missouri do a military style salute to Obama
• Continual rewriting dumbing down of American History
• Denying Christian books at school libraries while fighting to keep age inappropriate books in the libraries and in the classroom

Update:

• Brooklyn Middle School Ordered To Remove Obama Poster

This is ironic since librarians and teachers are fighting to keep books that are age inappropriate in their libraries.

“America is unique among nations in being founded not on a common ethnicity, but on a set of ideas. A nation based on ethnicity perpetuates itself by the fact of birth. But a nation founded on an idea starts anew with each generation and with each new group of immigrants. Knowing what America stands for is not a genetic inheritance. It must be learned, both by the next generation and by those who come to this country. In this way, a nation founded on an idea is inherently fragile. And a nation that celebrates the many ways we are different from one another must remind itself constantly of what we all share.”

———————————–
Here are some scary statistics vis a vis historical literacy: the majority of eighth-graders cannot explain the purpose behind the Declaration of Independence, and a mere five percent of high school seniors can explain how Congress and the Supreme Court check presidential power.
———————————–
According to James Ceaser, professor of politics at the University of Virginia and a participant in the project, the country’s understanding and appreciation of diversity is important but should be balanced by emphasizing what we share. “In selecting the title ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ the Project embraces the conviction that plurality and unity are not necessarily in tension with one another, but are supporting ideas of the same national experiment. Plurality is only made safe when it is grounded in a deeper commitment to national unity. Unity is the precondition for healthy diversity.”

Besides putting an exaggerated emphasis on the differences among us, the Bradley Report also concludes that American history is taught in a way that highlights what’s wrong with America over what is right. Another of its recommendations: “Schools should not slight their civic mission by giving students the impression that America’s failures are more noteworthy than America’s achievements. They should begin with the study of America’s great ideals, heroes, and achievements, so that its struggles can be put in perspective. A broad-minded, balanced approach to the American story best prepares young people for informed democratic participation.”

Our public government schools are destroying the education of our children. They are no longer teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead they are teaching a worldview that is not supported by most Americans and is the reason our students are not up to international standards.

The teachers unions have taken power and have full support from the Democratic Party and much of the Republican Party. This power allows them to mandate what is taught and how it is taught along with their pals in the Education Colleges. This downward spiral of American Education will not change until we change the system from a government monopoly to a system that puts the parents back in control.

The solution is to fund the child and not the bureaucracy. This simple plan that would allow all children equal access to a good education and can easily be done with the following steps:

• Designate an equal amount of money for each school-aged child
• The parents then choose which school their child will attend
  • Public – in or out of current district boundary
  • Private
  • Charter
• Remove all current mandates
• Require all financial data to be on the internet for all public/charter schools
• Require yearly testing of all students – all schools (These tests should be created by an independent authority and not the current State or Education Bureaucracy)
• Require raw and aggregate testing results to be on the internet in a timely manner, i.e. in time for school selection for the upcoming school year – all schools
• Abolish NCLB, it will no longer be needed
• Abolish the Dept. of Education, it also will no longer be needed

To use economic terminology, the school reform debate is about a bottom line: student achievement. After years of pouring money into the public schools, public school students have not shown commensurate improvement in academic achievement. Parents, taxpayers, and concerned citizens are still not being given adequate answers as to why this is the case.

We noted in a series beginning here, the blame lies with the teacher unions and the rest of the education establishment that daily resists the only thing that will bring real change – and that is competition through the empowering of parents through school choice.

Competition can improve the public schools much like Honda, Toyota, and Nissan improved Ford, GM, and Chrysler. When the American auto manufacturers were selling an inferior product during the 1970s, it was competition from Japan that provided all the incentives they needed to get their collective acts together.

Tebow laws are controversial on both the home school and public school side. Many home schoolers don’t want to be under any regulation from the public school buearacracy, while the public schools claim they can’t verify eligibility and do’t want to give up spots on the team to home schoolers.

Illinois does not allow home schoolers to play in the public schools. I reported a local story about this in Antioch.

In some states home schoolers have formed their own teams. Some of these players are the best in the country in their sports.

I come down on the side of the Tebow Laws. Home schoolers pay the same taxes as everyone else. Because of this, they should have the right to play sports and have access to whatever services they need just like public school students.

There are 15 referendums/advisory questions in Lake County this year. How many of these entities put their check registers online? To my knowledge, none of them. If they do, please send me the link to their site and I’ll be happy to post it here. Until such time as any of these entities do post this basic information, they have not earned a yes vote.

If you live in any of these taxing bodies, please join me in asking them to join the transparency effort of “No taxation without information” and bring Sunshine to your local government’s spending.

I would like to encourage you to stand strong and do what is fiscally responsible. Below are tactics used by the Michigan MEA. Some of these very tactics have been used in districts here in Illinois. Please continue to share data with the public and you will continue to have their support. The public are you employers, not the teachers or administration.

Thank you for your time. I would appreciate receiving your Press Releases as well.

http://www.mackinac.org/mea/vi.htm

MEA Advocates Deceptive High Pressure Tactics Against School Board Members

An MEA training audio tape for union negotiators offers a particularly disturbing inside look at the MEA, and clearly reveals that it has adopted the militant “industrial union” model for its organization, rather than a “craft union” or professional association model.

The transcript of the tape explains how union negotiators should use pressure tactics to force school board members to concede to their demands. Among the tactics advocated are:

Investigate the background of each school board member, including religious affiliation, marital status, age, education, employment, family, politics, “what do his peers think of him?,” “what is his relationship with his employer or employees?,” and “does holding a public office help him advance in his job or produce business connections?” This should be investigated, the MEA states, so the negotiator will “know what sensitive chords and nerves to hit during negotiation to get the results you seek.”
After gathering information, the MEA recommends that the local union “consider bringing in a heavy from the outside. You know, perhaps your Uniserv director. When the job is done and the bad guy, you know, has to leave town, won’t it be nice when the local association won’t have to bear the brunt of resentment?”

The MEA tape recommends that the negotiator “use time as an ally. You know, if your negotiating team can get to bargaining sessions well rested, whereas the board’s team is harried and fatigued, keep negotiations going until 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock in the morning. Wear down the board physically and psychologically.”

“Remember that large districts rely heavily upon the superintendent to absorb the flack. They use the superintendent as a shield. If he is discredited, the rest of the board suddenly feels naked and they are often eager to take an escape route which the association has waited for the appropriate moment to offer.”

“Do your best to split the board on crucial issues through contacts with individual board members or misrepresentation of the issues to the public through press releases. Attempt to carefully attack the credibility of the board negotiating team so that most of the board team’s executive sessions with their board will be spent answering board members’ questions about association charges and not with planning on up-coming negotiation sessions.”

If you don’t know what referendums are happening this year, visit the Local Ballot Measures on Ballotpedia. There are 15 referendums/advisory questions on the ballot in Lake County on November 4th. Get informed who is trying to raise your taxes.

Thanks to County Board Member Bob Powers for the following:

Deadline for Property Tax Appeals in Avon Township is: September 22,2008

Seven Easy Steps to Appeal an Assessment (For Residential)

1. Obtain the assessed valuation of your property.
2. Determine the fair market value for your property.
3. Discuss the assessment with your assessor.
4. Determine the basis for your formal appeal.
5. File a written appeal with your Board of Review.
6. Present evidence of unfair assessment to the Board of Review at the hearing.
7. Appeal the Board of Review’s decision to the Property Tax Appeal Board (in writing) in the event of an unsatisfactory decision by the Board of Review, or appeal directly to the Circuit Court.

Go to: Board of Review to download Residential Real Estate Assessment Appeal for Tax Year 2008 forms and Rules of the Lake County Board of Review. For more information regarding your taxes you can call Avon Township (847) 546-2146 or visit Chief County Assessment Office

Date: September 15, 2008 4:00 a.m. RE: Union Turns Down 17.8%

Salary Offer; Calls Strike for Monday, September 15.

The Huntley Education Association (HEA) leadership gave notice they are officially on strike as of Monday, September 15, 2008. Because of this action, over 8,000 students will not be in school on Monday. The HEA leadership has repeatedly declared they would not strike as long as the Board continued to negotiate. The Board spent over forty hours this weekend alone bargaining in good faith
and making major concessions. Despite that fact, the HEA leadership did not keep their promise to the families and students of District 158, and instead declared a strike.

The Board offered a number of language changes that were very important to HEA members (for more details see press release of September 14, 6:00 p.m.). At 8:10 p.m., the Board suggested a three year “meet the union halfway” compromise offering every on-schedule member more than a 5% salary increase for each of the three contract years. The supposal also listed off-schedule members as receiving 4% in the first year, and 3.5% in years two and three.

The combined salary schedule increase offered over three years (with lane changes included) was 17.8%. As a major concession, the
Board also offered to include TRS compensation as part of this increase.

The Board of Education is extremely disappointed the HEA Leadership declined an offer of over 5% salary increase for most of its members in each of the three years. The Board of Education asked the HEA to defer their strike in order to continue bargaining. The HEA Leadership refused.

The teachers are asking for 21% raises over the three years:

The union has proposed a deal that would increase overall teacher compensation by 6 percent, 7 percent and 8 percent in years one, two and three of the union’s proposed contract, respectively.

Home values are decreasing, salaries are decreasing, more and more people are losing their jobs, and the Huntley Education Association is striking because an almost 6% raise per year isn’t enough for them. This is a direct attack on the children. It shows their greed and self serving nature of the Union that they would care more about getting exhorbitant raises than teaching the children of the district.

Related to teachers unions are the following past articles:

• Are Public School Teachers Underpaid?
• Force Political Contributions
• Teacher Raises Higher than Taxpayers
• Open Contract Negotiations?
• Greedy People or Greedy System
• Tyranny of The Minority
• Should Teachers Be Allowed to Strike?

I was emailed last night. The student is now enrolled at Lakes and will be tested. The school is being cooperatative at this time. The credits transfer will be determined after testing.

UPDATE:

I recevied a phone call from Principal McKay of Lakes Community High School Friday morning. I wasn unable to take the call and he left me a message. In his message he stated how irresponsible I was for publishing this article without contacting him to get the facts. I tried returning his call Friday afternoon, and left him a message in response. I stated that I had contacted him about the situation and that he had emailed ad did not want to discuss the situation. Here is that email response I received Thursday:

Hello Lennie,

I am unsure what specific situation you are referring to. You may appreciate that I am not at liberty to discuss specific family situations, however if you are interested in District 117 policies regarding home schooling, they can be found on our website. The “About” pull down button will link you to the District site which has all our policies. If you have further questions, please contact me directly.

Mr. McKay
Principal
Lakes Community High School

The Lakes Community High School in Antioch School District 117 is refusing to accept the credits for subjects learned by a home schooler wishing to return to their school because they did not have a Certificate of Nonpublic School Recognition from the ISBE. This policy not only affects home schoolers, it affects any private school that does not submit to ISBE inspections.

Here is the reference from their School Board Policy Manual (bottom p. 23):

Grade Placement and Academic Credits

Grade placement by, and academic credits earned at, a nonpublic school will be accepted if the school has a Certificate of Nonpublic School Recognition from the Illinois State Board of Education, or, if outside Illinois, if the school is accredited by the state agency governing education.

A student who, after receiving instruction in a non-recognized or non-accredited school, enrolls in the District will: (1) be assigned to a grade level according to academic proficiency determined through evaluation of records, testing or other means, and/or (2) be awarded academic credits from the District if the student demonstrates appropriate academic proficiency to the school administration. Any portion of a student’s transcript relating to such instruction will not be considered for placement on the honor roll or computation in class rank.

Recognition of grade placement and academic credits awarded by a nonpublic school is at the sole discretion of the District. All school and class assignments will be made according to School Board Policy 710.12, Student Transfers, as well as administrative procedures implementing this policy.

CROSS REF.: 710.12
Adopted 11/8/97
Modified 5/7/02

At this point, they have not offered testing to determine academic proficiency. Another home school family is trying to help out with this since their children were former Lakes High School attendees.

When I found out about this story I was not surprised. The public schools have continually tried to ridicule home schooling for a multitude of reasons. The problem is that home schoolers continue to outperform public school students.

This denial of credits is just a ploy to make it as difficult as possible for parents and to discourage others from home schooling. This same policy is in place at other high schools in Illinois as well.

This presents a couple of other legal questions. The ISBE has the authority to certify curriculum in non public schools. This must be done yearly and requires visits and inspections. Since home schooler are consider private schools in Illinois, can they receive this certification? The answer is probably yes, but it would be an invasion of privacy for home schoolers and schould be considered an invasion of privacy for most private schools.

This leads to another question, why is it necessary to have the ISBE be the solely responsible for certification? Why is this certification process needed at all? Certification should not be needed at all.

First, it would simpler to just require ACT test, PSAE test for the student wishing to return to a public school. Second, it would save a tremendous amount of money since the ISBE would not need the personnell, the private schools would not need the time to fill out the paperwork or host visits. All o f that money could be put into actually educating instead of into bureaucracy.

We spend nearly $600 Billion dollars on education and yet our public schools are failing. Yet, these same public schools want to harass and intimidate home schoolers who are effective.

What can you do to help this family? Call the District Offices at 847-395-1421 and tell them this policy is bad. Contact the school principal at 847-838-7100. You can also email by the Principal, Jim McKay and the Director of Guidance & Instruction, Cheryl Cox.

Lake County school districts in support of a 1 percent sales tax increase for the county have to regroup and decide what their next step will be, as the sales tax increase won’t be on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Roycealee Wood, regional superintendent of schools in Lake County, said the support of school districts representing 51 percent of the student body in the county, about 72,000, was needed to place a referendum question asking for a 1 percent sales-tax increase on the ballot. And that number needed to be reached by the Lake County Board’s meeting on Tuesday.

If you live in one of the following school districts, please start looking for fiscally responsible residents who would make good school board candidates. Elections a re next April and petitions will need to be signed and turned in late this year.

• Big Hollow District 38
• Deerfield District 109
• Highland Park District 112
• Lake Villa District 41
• Zion-Benton Township High School District 126
• Grant Community High School District 124
• Grayslake District 46
• Millburn District 24
• Mundelein High School District 120
• Waukegan District 60
• Prairie Crossing Charter School
• Woodland District 50

And don’t forget the comment by Regional Superintendent of Schools, Roycealee Wood next time she is up for re-election.

“Obviously I’m in support of anything that will help our public schools,”

This comment is easy to interpret. It means she will continue to support the never ending tax increases asked for by our public government schools.

To fix these endless tax increases, we have to starting funding the child and stop funding the bureaucracy.

The campus is finding out now that the Illinois Standards Achievement Test scoring is seriously flawed across the state. The results produced high and low fluctuations across the board.

“How do you tell that to a seventh grade kid who is stressed out about testing in general?” Johnson questioned. “That doesn’t raise their confidence level.”

Even the school officials and students understand there is a problem with the State education bureaucracy. It is broken and must be replaced, not reformed.

Illinois kindergartners already faced a lengthy to-do list before they could report to school: mandatory vaccinations, tuberculosis tests, physicals and dental exams. This year, they need to stop at the eye doctor too. A new law requires that kindergartners and students new to Illinois schools receive a complete eye exam—to check for everything from astigmatism to glaucoma—performed by an optometrist or physician licensed to perform those tests. Schools may withhold report cards of students who do not show evidence of the exam by Oct. 15. Illinois already required schools to do basic screening of students’ eyesight in kindergarten, 2nd and 8th grades, leading some medical experts and educators to question the merits of the new law. More extensive eye exams undoubtedly will mean earlier detection of vision problems in some children, they say, but will also increase the expense for some financially strapped families. An eye exam typically costs about $50.

Government just keeps on mandating more and more expenses on top of the never ending taxes. These mandates are on top of all the mandates the schools have to perform already. Of course there are some parents who will never take their kids to the doctor, but that is a small minority. Instead of mandating something for everyone, lets find a way to help those parents who don’t help their kids. We just don’t need all of these government mandates. The government does not need to take care of us all.

But other expenditures reveal this national NEA cash — which is separate from PAC contributions that must adhere to federal campaign-finance laws — as a fund for various and sundry left-wing political causes. Mr. Antonucci reports that during the current fiscal year the NEA sent the Hawaii State Teachers Association $20,000 to conduct polling on a state constitutional convention. It sent the Massachusetts Teachers Association $60,000 to oppose a state income-tax repeal. And it sent the Florida Education Association $200,000 to oppose property-tax cuts in the Sunshine State. Expect more of the same going forward in a state near you. “Unlike most previous years,” writes Mr. Antonucci, “NEA finished 2007-08 with a surplus of nearly $5.9 million, which means the union will enter the 2008-09 school year with almost $20 million available to spend.” It’s a shame the NEA doesn’t spend as much money and effort trying to improve lousy schools as it does trying to keep taxes high.

Not all teachers agree with the fair share clauses in their contracts and these forced contributions. Infortunately there needs to be a lot more teachers who stand up to the union and the school board to remove the fair share language from their next contract. The following is a letter from a teacher to a school board about their fair share objection. Posted anonymously with permission.

Dear Board Members: As all of you know, this year the teacher contract expires and is up for renegotiation. I am communicating with you directly because the teacher’s union, though permitted by law to act as my representative, in no way represents me. Shortly after accepting employment with the district in 1990, I resigned my membership in the union, and I have remained nonunion ever since. Prior to 1995, union membership and paying dues to the union were completely voluntary. The union stood or fell based on the willingness of each teacher to join and contribute to it. In 1995, however, the union leadership convinced the school board to agree to a contract provision mandating either union membership or the payment by nonmembers of an “agency fee” – a fee the union set at 100% of union dues (making the absurd claim that all union dues are spent solely on collective bargaining). The union calls this kick back arrangement “fair share.” There is nothing fair about “fair share,” however, and in twenty-two states such coercive kick back schemes are illegal. While the union might argue that it negotiates for all so all should be forced to pay, this is a “catch-22” argument since no one is allowed to negotiate for themselves. By law, a simple majority of the teachers can compel the rest to accept union representation. This is unfair enough, but now with “fair share,“ they can also force all teachers to pay the union whatever it demands. If the union truly resents having to negotiate for nonmembers, they should surrender their power to act as the exclusive bargaining agent and allow nonmembers to make their own agreements with the board. The union is not about to do this, however, since that would shatter their monopoly power (over both the board and the teachers) and open the door to freedom of contract and to market competition. The fact is fair share is an attack upon the rights of all who work in the district – not just nonunion employees. Since the imposition of coerced payment, the NEA and IEA have repeatedly raised annual dues. The national and state organizations have then used much of this new money to both pad their payrolls and to engage in rather dubious political activity having nothing to do with collective bargaining. They can do this with relative impunity because they know with “fair share” in place in many districts, they now have a captive membership and a guaranteed cash flow to fund more power grabs and to further promote their political agendas. Individual union members (but notably not nonmembers) can make a feeble protest by voting in union elections, of course, but thanks to the efforts of a union negotiating team in the 1990’s (probably acting at the behest of the state and national organizations), District [snip] teachers lost the ultimate leverage – the right to leave the union and take their financial contribution with them. Of course, individual members are still nominally free to leave the union and pay an agency fee, and they even have the right to challenge that agency fee before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board [snip], but facing the legal and bureaucratic obstacles “fair share” places in their path, most teachers have simply given in. When “fair share” was first put in place, there were, as I recall, some two dozen teachers who were not members of the union. Now, as far as I can tell, that number is down to [snip]. With a new (and perhaps more militant) union leadership taking over this year and tighter budgets in prospect, the possibility of a teacher strike looms. Should a strike occur, I will not support it and will stand ready to report for duty. I will have that freedom because I am not a union member. (Illinois law permits the union to impose legally enforceable fines on members who defy a strike.) I believe it is in the board’s interest and in the interests of the district’s taxpayers to insist on the removal of the “fair share” provision from the next contract. This would empower individual teachers who are so inclined to move against the union and break the back of any strike. Even in the absence of a strike, the presence of a substantial number of nonunion teachers will put pressure on the union to be more flexible in its demands. In short, there is no benefit to the district for the board to empower the union to coerce teachers it allegedly represents and every reason for the board to insist on the restoration of individual teacher rights to freedom of association. I knew a member of the negotiating team that first got the board to give in on “fair share.” (Previous boards had always upheld teacher rights and said “no.”) She told me that the team was surprised the board gave in and that it was certainly not a priority or something at the time they were willing to strike over or even hold up an agreement over. According to my colleague, the board placed it on the table, and the union took it. No doubt this year’s union negotiators will squawk should the board now insist on removing “fair share.” They will make the same fallacious arguments that everyone should be made to pay for their “services.“ Fair share is not about payment for services, however, but about control and power. Unable in the past to get all teachers to knuckle under and pay up voluntarily, the union coerced the board into forcing teachers to pay and thereby the board greatly enhanced the union’s power. I am hopeful that this year’s negotiations provide an opportunity to remedy this past injustice and produce a contract that respects the rights of all teachers. Perhaps it is only me that feels so strongly about this, and if that be true, the union has nothing to worry about in giving up its coerced dues. [snip] If, on the other hand, the union knows that many teachers, if given the opportunity, would opt out and withdraw support for the union’s political agenda, then the union has every reason to fight the end of “fair share.” It would be interesting to see how confident the union is in the depth of its rank and file support, and whether the union reps really want to try and make the argument that the teachers they represent want to be forced to pay.

I have been saying a lawsuit has been in order for several years now because of the funding discrepancies. The funding discrepancies are caused and perpetuated by the education bureaucracy, teachers unions, legislators, congressmen and the blind support of the NAACP, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, State Sen Meeks, and others. They are under the false impression that money is the answer, when it has been proven that money is not the answer.

The answer to this problem is education opportunities which will only come with competition. Here are the steps that can be taken to provide equal access to a good education for all children including those in the inner city, poor and minorities.

• Designate an equal amount of money for each school-aged child
• The parents then choose which school their child will attend
  • Public – in or out of current district boundary
  • Private
  • Charter
• Remove all current mandates
• Require all financial data to be on the internet for all public/charter schools
• Require yearly testing of all students – all schools (These tests should be created by an independent authority and not the current State or Education Bureaucracy)
• Require raw and aggregate testing results to be on the internet in a timely manner, i.e. in time for school selection for the upcoming school year – all schools
• Abolish NCLB, it will no longer be needed
• Abolish the Dept. of Education, it also will no longer be needed

If Charles Rangel, State Sen. Meeks and others want to truly want to help educate poor African Americans along with other inner city youth, then they need to Fund The Child and stop funding the bureaucracy.

Local school districts in Illinois are forced to raise 62 percent of their revenue from the property tax on homeowners and businesses. They get 8.4 percent of their money from the federal government.

Schools are not forced to raise revenue from property taxes as stated. Up until 1992 there was virtually no limit on the amount a school district could levy. Since 1992, they have been limited by PTELL, although that can be easily exploited to get more money than approvedTechnorati Tags: Education reform, SB2288, HB750, State Sen. Meeks, New Trier, Fund the child, PTELL, overtax, referndum, funding inequities. In addition, with each increase in in the local property tax levy, there is a decrease in in State funding. In essence, the amount levied locally and the lowering of the amount received from the State makes the funding locally increase at a faster rate than the State increases.

This current system absolutely causes funding to be different based on your zipcode. The solution that the schools, teachers unions, and many State Legislators want is a huge tax increase. The only thing this tax increase does is provide more money to the education bureaucracy while they only give a small portion to the actual education of the children.

State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) recently announced that he wants Chicago Public Schools students to enroll at suburban New Trier Township High School on the first day of class to protest the inequities in school funding in Illinois. For the past six years, Meeks has worked to pass legislation that would increase the state income tax to fund the schools, while offering some property tax relief.

This tax increase solution, known as SB2288/HB750, is what State Sen. Meeks wants. Again, this solution won’t provide the results he claims to want and that is an educated populace of inner city kids. His blind support of the education bureaucracy only extends the educational apartheid inherent in the current public government schools.

The solution to fix this is funding the child and stop funding the bureaucracy. When we start giving and equal amount of money to each child and let the parents choose what school they want them to attend, we will turn around our educational system in quick order. This is already been done in New Zealand with astoundingly quick results. Competition is a wonderful thing to end the bloated bureaucracy in our current government run monopoly call public schools. School choice saves money and increases results.

the California Court of Appeal ruled that the state’s education code allows parents to home school their children. That decision means parents do not have to obtain state credentials in order to home school. The court acknowledged that a state prohibition on home schooling would intrude on parents’ constitutional right to direct their children’s education, and that that any limit on that right would be presumed unconstitutional.

This is a great ruling for homeschoolers. All parents though need to stay vigilant and watch who we elect to courts. A resource for learning about judges, besides news from Focus on the Family, is Judgepedia, a project of the Sam Adams Alliance.

Watching our judges is very important. There are many judges who are becoming activists and making legislation. This is not there role. They are only to make sure laws abide by the Constitution. Unfortunately today, legislators are allowing the courts to make rulings so they won’t be blamed and won’t to have go on record as opposing the will of the people.

State Sen. James Meeks of Chicago’s South Side got the conversation going recently when he urged Chicago students to skip class on Sept. 2, the first day of school in the city, and try to enroll instead at Winnetka’s New Trier High School. Meeks hopes the protest will shine a light on what he considers to be an unfair school funding system in Illinois, one that favors rich areas over poor ones. The New Trier district, with two high school campuses, spends about $17,000 a year on each of its students, while Chicago Public Schools, a unit district that includes both elementary and high schools, spends about $10,000.

This is just a stunt because New Trier and every other school district won’t allow this to happen. The district model perpetuates the inequtiy which allow people like Meeks and the teachers unions to continually lobby for more taxpayer money. The trend of ever increasing taxes will never end as long as we allow the bureaucrats to decide where our children attend school. The only solution is to Fund the Child instead of funding public government school bureaucracies. Money is not the answer as I have explained many times before. Watch the video I posted early that shows the idiocy of the arguments against a system that allows parents to choose. There are also many articles I have posted at Fund the Child.

First, an answer. Yes, millions of dollars from losing Illinois Lottery tickets go to fund public education.

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The lottery began in 1974, but the money wasn’t specifically earmarked for education until 1985. That year, a new law required all lottery profits go to the state’s schools fund, which helps finance kindergarten through high school public education.

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There was no requirement the lottery money be on top of what was already there. So, as lottery money comes in, it frees up other state tax money to spend elsewhere. How much education gets in the end is up to the annual political whims of state lawmakers and the governor.

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“Thus, while the lottery is a significant source of revenue, it has never been – nor will be – the primary source of school funding,” reads a line on one pamphlet explaining where lottery money goes.

So the lottery funding education is a myth and will remain so. This leaves the bulk of school funding on the backs of homeowners through property taxes. As much as everyone likes to claim property taxes are local control, it is really just a state sanctioned tax to give the appearance of local control.

It’s time to fund the child and quit funding the bureaucracies in the public government schools

Since 2004, the foundation has tracked the school performance of African-American boys. This year’s report, released last month in Chicago at the annual UNITY convention of minority journalists, shows that 53 percent of black males did not receive diplomas with their cohort during the 2005-06 school year.

“Unfortunately, it’s pretty much the same thing,” said Michael Holzman, a research consultant for the foundation and the author of the report.

Mr. Holzman said that schools enrolling large numbers of black male students are not as good as schools with a larger population of white students: The teachers are not as experienced and effective, the schools lack resources, and the curriculum is not as challenging. Non-black students enrolled at such schools, he said, also did not graduate at the same rate as their counterparts in schools that had fewer black students.

What about Chicago?

Chicago, which has the nation’s second-highest enrollment of black males, had a graduation rate of 37 percent for African-American boys, compared with 62 percent for white males, the Schott report found. In addition, the report found, the school systems in New York City, Detroit, and Miami-Dade County, Fla., also did not graduate the majority of black boys.

The report says there is a “leadership deficit” and I have to agree, but not in the way they claim. The leadership deficit I see is African American leaders like Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Rev. Meeks, the NAACP and others who blindly support a public government school system that is setup to keep African American children uneducated and thus unable to compete without governmental support. How they justify this blind support is beyond me. The only possible reasons I see are that it is all about the money they receive by staying in leadership roles and with a dumbed down population, they won’t be able to think for themselves and will continue to support these failed leaders and their policies of apartheid.

This apartheid system will not change until we start funding the child instead of funding a self-serving bloated bureaucracy that cares more about its own extravagent pensions, salaries and benefits instead of the needs of actually educating the children of this country.

The preamble of our state constitution holds state government responsible for, among other things, to “provide for the health, safety and welfare of the people,” to “eliminate poverty and inequality,” and to “maintain orderly government, and assure legal, social and economic justice.”

One can say that this is similar to the Biblical “brother’s keeper” concept which emphasizes a sense of community vs. individualism. Instead, we have a philosophy of government obsessed with no tax increases and smaller government regardless of the effect upon people.

—————————————-
The governor has said he will veto any tax increase bill, and proposed a balanced budget that makes draconian cuts in education, health care, payments to health care providers of the aged and disabled, and many other services to the disadvantaged.

To correct the problems of revenue and school funding, and to provide adequate services for the needy, Senate Bill 2288 has been introduced. It provides for lowering property taxes and funding schools through the income tax, which will be increased, and will enable the legislature to meet the challenges of the constitution’s preamble.

If we feel that we are our brother’s keeper and believe that we are to help the “least of these” among us, we should demand that our representatives act accordingly.

Darwin Cooper

This is a prime example of why we are living in a Nannocracy. Community to Mr. Cooper means State control. Community to me means your neighbors and friends who come together to help each other in times of need. An example of a neighbors and friends helping others can be found at DebbiTepper.com and MargaretLindner.com.

Mr. Cooper, it is very nice that you want to help others, but stop taking money from me to server your purposes. It is my money and I will help those I believe deserve it. I believe more people can be helped if the State bureaucracy is not involved in the decisions. In addition, SB 2288 is a massive tax grab where

of the $8 billion estimated to be raised by SB2288 and HB750, only 7.5% will go to education, 36% will go to property tax relief, and the remaining 56.5% will go to fund state debt, road construction, state employee pensions and unpaid Medicaid bills, which do not benefit education

Grayslake District 46 is taking steps this summer to make its schools safer for students and staff as they start the new school year.

New lighting will be installed in the Frederick School parking lot, and district officials may vote to install security cameras in Frederick and Grayslake middle schools.

——————————————————
Kraus Electrical will install the new lights for $21,550 after the board approved the bid at Monday night’s meeting. The bid was about $9,000 less than what the district expected, Correll said.

The board also planned to discuss bids to install cameras in the hallways at Frederick and Grayslake middle schools, but bids were not available at the meeting. Correll said the bids are expected to come in on Friday and will be discussed at the next meeting. Park School already has cameras in the school as they were installed when the school was built.

• News-Sun: Antioch group recommends elementary school referendum (Excerpt below)
• Daily Herald: Antioch group tabs education goals
• Antioch Review: Nav34 recommendations presented to board

An advisory group of parents and staff studying the issues facing Antioch School District 34 for the past seven months recommended the district hold a bond referendum to build more classrooms to relieve overcrowding and the district’s reliance on 16 mobile classrooms.

Considering the slowed economy and two failed referendums since 2006, the earliest the district would pursue a referendum would be March 2009, said District 34 Superintendent Scott Thompson.

“It’s too soon to do in November,” he said. “We have to determine when the right time is economically.”

What Superintendent Thompson means by November being too soon is they the district does not have the needed time to get their propaganda out in favor of a Yes vote. This is especially true since their last 2 attempts have been beaten.

District 34, like virtually every other school district in Illinois doesn’t listen to the taxpayers. They continue to put referendum after referendum on the ballot until it is passed. They’ll do surveys and these consensus groups together to make it appear that they are listening to the taxpayers, when these attempts are just masquerades of propaganda to get what the district wants.

Our public government schools are overfunded currently. They do not need more money. They need fiscal responsibility to stop the spending problems instead. One way to force this is to Fund The Child. Designate a specified amount of money for each and every child. The parents then get to choose the school they want their child to attend and the money then follows. This puts the parents in charge of the purse strings instead of the bloated and self-serving school bureaucracy. The schools will actually have to earn the money by innovating and actually producing results.

You can take a survey about District 34 at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=JGFWf8RgmyTbEJ3Chjoadw_3d_3d
. Let them know what you think.

Wauconda school board member Nicholas Batson was sentenced to 6 months in jail and 2 years probation Thursday after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor domestic battery charge.

Batson was facing up to 14 years in prison on two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for allegedly molesting a 14-year-old female relative at his Wauconda Township home on Dec. 5.

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“This conduct to which he’s acknowledged is bad, but in my mind he is not a bad person,” Menaker said. “The school board has not discharged him.”

The last statement about the school board not discharging him is ludicrous because they can’t. All they can do is ask him to resign but they have no power to force him off.

This is just another example of why the citizens need recall for all elected officials. Unfortunately, the elected officials are not going to give us this option willingly. The only way to get recall is going to be via a Constitution Convention. To make that happen, there needs to be a Yes vote this November. For more information on the ConCon vote see YesForIllinois.com and the IllinoisCitizenCoalition.org websites.

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing lately about Illinois’ $42 billion unfunded pension liability and the $22 billion deficit in the teachers pension fund. But there hasn’t been any mention of the correlation between teacher strikes, higher salaries and their impact upon the pension system.

Illinois is one of only a handful of states that still allows teachers to strike. What do the majority of other states know that Illinois chooses to ignore? It’s the fact that the ability to strike empowers teacher unions to strike at the drop of a hat. For example, in 2005, when the private sector was either getting laid off or 0 percent to 3 percent raises, Naperville Unit District 203 offered an outrageous and unaffordable 4.99 percent per year increase to their teachers. And the teachers still threatened to strike! They ended up getting 5.2 percent, and incredible retirement enhancements. These out-of-touch salary increases and golden parachute retirement packages end up putting a huge drain on the Illinois pension system.

So why hasn’t Illinois done anything about this common sense fix that virtually every other state has already figured out? Follow the money. The Illinois Political Action Committee for Education has donated millions to politicians. What politician is going to take on the powerful IPACE? The other contributing factor to 5-plus percent salary increases is the fact that many school boards owe their elections to the support of their local teachers union.

The solution to the Illinois pension crisis is simple: common sense and backbone.

Mike Davitt
Naperville

See the stories below for examples of the pension problem:

• Money is Not the Answer
• Pension Obligations
• Greedy People or Greedy System?
• Should Teachers Be Allowed to Strike?
• Greatest Enemy of Public Education
• How Pensions Cost the Taxpayer and Take Money from the Children

If you want to know more about Obama’s positions on education and other issues visit another of my websites Obama States of America.

Daily Herald excerpts:

Grayslake High School District’s technology director had a blood-alcohol level more than double the legal threshold when his boat collided with another vessel early Sunday, killing a 21-year-old woman, state officials said.

Rick L. McGuire, 55, of 4713 E. Wonder Lake Road in the namesake village, is free on $2,500 bail. He was charged with operating a water craft under the influence of alcohol resulting in the death of an individual, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. McGuire was not injured, reports stated.

IDNR spokeswoman Paris Ervin said test results that became available Wednesday showed McGuire’s blood-alcohol content measured .179 – more than double the legal threshold of .08.

Laurie Kimbrel, associate superintendent for programs and personnel at Grayslake District 127, confirmed McGuire is the director of technology. She declined further comment Wednesday.

News-Sun excerpt:

McGuire, who is employed by Grayslake District 127 as a technology director, crashed his 18-foot Sea Ray boat around 12:30 a.m. into a 15-foot Starcraft boat driven by David Lebrecht, 50, of Wonder Lake. The crash occurred northwest of Center Beach on Wonder Lake, authorities said.

Jurgens, who was the only passenger on the boat, died due to severe chest, pelvis and stomach injuries, the McHenry County coroner’s office said.

Lebrecht suffered injuries and was taken to Northern Illinois Medical Center in McHenry, where he was treated and released.

McGuire, who had a blood-alcohol level of .179, was not injured in crash. He was freed on $2,500 bond.

McGuire is scheduled to appear in McHenry County court Aug. 6 for a preliminary hearing.

Update: Grayslake Review has an article today about this as well.

In more disturbing news from the local school districts, it was discovered that the

Grayslake Elementary District 46 overpaid 13 teachers and classroom assistants a combined $92,106 over the last two academic years

The story was in the Daily Herald. I am glad to see them continuing their reporting on the financial misconduct within the public government school system. Now, if they’ll stop recommending support for so many referendums until their is total financial transparency and the end of pay-to-play politics within the system.

Ellen Correll, superintendent of District 46, said taxpayers won’t be out the money because nine teachers have either repaid or will return a combined $60,682 they shouldn’t have received.

At least some of the money will be recovered, but some will not.

Three classroom assistants are compensating District 46 by performing extra work under a union settlement agreement struck in May, Correll said.

This money won’t be recovered, it will just be worked off and not repaid.

Correll said complex recalculations of salaries after a new employee contract led to the errors. She said the mistakes weren’t obvious in the checks for most of the 13 workers involved, which made it difficult when she told them the money had to be repaid.

———————————–
In addition, she said, all teachers and assistants will receive a letter noting their exact pay when the new academic season starts. An accounting firm soon will be hired to perform a special audit.

Now we know why unions make the contracts so complex. It is to confuse and help allow teachers to make more money than they are supposed to make. How many school districts do not make the teachers repay the mistakes?

It will now cost the taxpayers more money to audit the process. Will these auditors be the same auditors the district uses for their curent yearly audits? If so, why didn’t those auditors find the discrepancy during last years audit?

Documents show the overpaid classroom assistant who resigned was on pace to collect $39,466 — double her $19,733 annual salary — until the error was caught in January. Correll said the employee in question “should have been professional” and alerted officials about the noticeable discrepancy.

Yes, that employee should have notified the district. No, a doubling of pay should have been caught by the current payroll staff. Are those staff members still employed at the district after this mistake? They should not be employed anymore.

Wilbois said the mistakes in the teachers’ checks were found in a review of District 46’s payroll in July 2007.

District 46 board President Michael Linder said that in a school system with about 350 employees, it was surprising to learn a second payroll gaffe was discovered in January.

Gaffe is not exactly the word I would use for this. The error was found last July, but then it happened again this school year and found in January. I would call it incompetence.

I have a couple more questions:

• Why wasn’t the procedures fixed after the problem last July?
• With a known problem, why wasn’t payroll checked after the first few payrolls of the new school year instead of waiting until January?
• Again, is the same payroll staff still working for the district?

Again, we learn more about how corrupt and secretive school districts are. They want the taxpayer to open their wallets and hand over as much money as the district says, but then they want you to shut up and not pay attention to how they actually spend that money.

Read a few excerpts about the case or the full article in the Daily Herald.

The case may have the potential of keeping the employment contracts of all public officials from public scrutiny.

Until this week, District 200 successfully argued that Catalani’s contract isn’t a public document because it’s kept in a personnel file.

The district also keeps current Superintendent Richard Drury’s employment contract in a personnel file and believes it, too, is not a public document.

————————————–
District 200’s reasoning relies on an old case in Peoria where the local newspaper sought performance evaluations of a school superintendent. A court blocked the newspaper’s attempt because the evaluations were located in a personnel file.
————————————–
Now a DuPage judge must review Catalani’s contract. The judge must determine if the contract contains any private information that should be redacted before it is released to Stern and the public.
————————————–
District 200 spokesman Robert Rammer said staff will review the appellate court’s ruling and get a recommendation from the district’s attorney before deciding whether to continue fighting the case.

If the legal fight continues, the Illinois Supreme Court may have to decide if it will review the arguments.

As you can see the District is playing games and costing the taxpayers thousands of dollars. If they continue the fight they will cost the taxpayers many thousands more. This is an expensive waste of taxpayer dollars. It is obvious their intentions. They want this and every other contract to be hidden from any public scrutiny freeing them to act with impunity with benefits and salary packages.

The greed and arrogance of many school administrators is just outrageous. This is just one more example of why we need funding and transparency reform for education. I leave you with the following quote from Leslie Graves of the Lucy Burns Institute, “no taxation without information”.

• Test: Lead in Dist. 211 turf doesn’t pose health risk
• Straight Talk on District 211
• Artificial turf OK’d despite $2 million over budget
• DISTRICT 211 TO PROCEED WITH TURF

The following are excerpts from a letter to the editor entitled, “This kind of money for turf is obscene”. [Emphasis mine]

District 211 board meeting, we learned: (1) that a motion to spend $8.7 million on artificial turf for the district’s football fields had been approved; (2) that the project cost was $2.2 million higher than the board had been led to believe it would be; and (3) that Superintendent, Roger Thornton, was “embarrassed” by the error and regretted it.

Two things about the news are bothersome to me. First, spending $8.7 million for artificial turf is an obscenity. I gather that the academic departments within the district have all the money they need, so spending the millions on turf is not a problem.

I know all about the “safety” arguments that favor such projects, but in a difficult economy and with taxes rising all around us, it is the height of arrogance to spend taxpayer funds for this purpose.

————————————————–
Second, what is the response to Superintendent Thornton’s regret? What now? How will he and/or support staff members be held accountable? Will they be fired? Will they receive a salary decrease? Will they be denied a raise when these decisions are made?

If one of these things doesn’t occur, Superintendent Thornton’s utterance is just words. A $2.2 million mistake isn’t like ordering two dozen more boxes of pencils than are needed. This is a big deal. The District 211 board owes it to the public to show that they think it is a big deal too.

Charles F. Falk

Mr. Falk is absolutely correct. The cost of this artificial turf is obscene.

You will notice that turf being put in is Field Turf. This is the same turf that Grayslake High School District 127 chose. In the Grayslake case they made sure the specs eliminated all other synthetic turf vendors so they could choose the highest priced vendor which provided Field Turf. It would be interesting if someone checked the bids for this purchase to see if the same sort of bid rigging took place.

Senate Joint Resolution 13 (SJR13) (Property Tax Assessment Freeze) allows for property tax relief while allowing a constant revenue flow to fund state, city and county operations. This resolution calls for freezing property tax assessments for all real property owners until that property is sold to another individual.

In short, this resolution limits property taxes to 2 percent of fair market value and limits annual increases in property assessments to either 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.

“Could it be that America would rather give unruly kids a pill than a swat?”

That’s what Dr. Lawrence Diller asks in a recent article. The behavioral pediatrician in Walnut Creek, Calif., said he thinks Ritalin is prescribed too often.

“There’s good solid evidence that when you give parents permission to give one or two smacks on the child’s bottom if the child defies the rules of the timeout procedure, the family is more often successful with the approach,” he told U.S. News & World Report. “Nobody wants to be pro-spanking. I’m not pro-spanking. I just think a well-thought-out spank ain’t so bad and shouldn’t be banned.”

I happen to believe Ritalin is over prescribed, especially for those children in our public government run school system. Read some of my previous posts on this topic at the following links:

• Drugging Children
• It’s The System, Not The Children

Nancy Shute, over at U.S. News wrote about this article as well in One View: A Spanking Might Beat Ritalin.

Related Item:
Fox News also recently ran a story about American Kids Take Anti-Psychotic Medicines at Six Times the Rate of U.K. Children.

School districts across Lake County are grappling with an array of critical issues from rising class sizes to meeting demands for technology. And, that says nothing of the common struggle over the lack of adequate funding, especially from the state. With that in mind, no options for saving money or streamlining operations should go unstudied, including consolidation. We applaud Antioch Elementary District 34 and Lake Villa Elementary District 41 for planning to examine that issue, and we think there are probably a few other school districts that should take a look as well. Illinois has 870 public school districts, the second highest number in the country. Of those districts, 200 are made up of a single school. In 2006, a state board of education analysis pointed out the benefits of fewer and larger school districts. They included lower administrative costs, improved administrative leadership, curriculum alignment and course offerings. It’s a big change that would require referendum approval by voters, but one that would be worth considering.

These 200 school districts not only have a principal, they have a Superintendent and their administrative staff. To save millions of dollars make each of these 200 districts a charter school. This eliminates the overhead of a Superintendent and their staff. Do not put any of these schools within the boundaries of another school district. Have the State directly fund each child who attends one of the schools. The school board stays in place as the advisory board. You now have a sizable test bed for a program to Fund the Child instead of the bureaucracy.

As a secondary note, Illinois has 870 school districts. Now you have an idea of why your property taxes are so high.

On Monday, June 2, the Daily Herald published an article entitled “Grayslake Elementary District 46 honored by company it hired.” Unfortunately, the reporter chose not to portray the excellent work of District 46 staff and administrators.

I had a meeting with the reporter earlier in the year to discuss Blue Ribbon. I presented him with a binder of data to support the improvements made as a direct result of this audit. He did not open the binder. I also invited the reporter to visit our classrooms to view firsthand the instructional improvements made. He chose not to visit.

Let me provide the readers with the facts, not opinions.

Fact: Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the improvement of education for all children.

Fact: If we truly were “buying” awards, we would have made sure all of our schools received awards.

Fact: Our schools were evaluated on the following criteria — Student focus and support; school organization and culture; challenging standards and curriculum; active teaching and learning; technology integration; professional community; leadership and educational vitality; and family and community partnerships.

These criteria are research-based and are identified as key in the improvement of instruction.

In addition, parents, students, and staff were invited to respond to a survey regarding our district.

The Daily Herald article quotes Edward M. Mazze, professor of Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island, as saying “the awards were of no significance” and the district is unnecessarily “patting itself on the back.”

I would personally like to “pat the backs” of the District 46 school board, administration and staff who opened their doors for an in-depth audit of their educational process. I am proud of the staff, and I am proud to be the superintendent in a district that is willing to allow outside experts to review their teaching methods.

Improving instruction and learning for the students of District 46 remains our top priority. I invite anyone who is truly interested in supporting that goal to spend time in our schools. That is where the real evidence is.

Ellen Correll
Superintendent,
Community Consolidated School District 46
Grayslake

I have worked at several companies who have done outside audits. In every one of these cases and those of fellow employees, these audits have reached the majority of the conclusions sought by the person paying for the audit. This even applies to financial audits. Just look at how Enron was audited and found in good standing until they collapsed.

Receiving awards from the auditor gives the appearance of impropriety if nothing else. I still believe it was a waste of taxpayer money and a way to get the school board to approve purchases they would otherwise felt exorbitant or frivolous.

I did want to highlight once statement:

These criteria are research-based and are identified as key in the improvement of instruction.

Why is this review research based and considered valuable and the scientific research studies showing direct instruction works better than Whole Language and Everyday Math is not as valuable? There would be a greater improvement in instruction by switching to a Direct Instruction curriculum than paying for awards.

For more background read here, here and here.

It’s easy to see why. Even in the 1950s, one of the highest priorities of most parents was to send their children to the best possible schools. Because the labor market has grown more competitive, this goal now looms even larger. It is no surprise that two-income families would choose to spend much of their extra income on better education. And because the best schools are in the most expensive neighborhoods, the imperative was clear: To gain access to the best possible public school, you had to purchase the most expensive house you could afford.

But what works for any individual family does not work for society as a whole. The problem is that a “good” school is a relative concept: It is one that is better than other schools in the same area. When we all bid for houses in better school districts, we merely bid up the prices of those houses.

———————————————–
The result was a painful dilemma for any family determined not to borrow beyond its means. No one would fault a middle-income family for aspiring to send its children to schools of at least average quality. (How could a family aspire to less?) But if a family stood by while others exploited more liberal credit terms, it would consign its children to below-average schools. Even financially conservative families might have reluctantly concluded that their best option was to borrow up.
———————————————–
Yet millions of families got into financial trouble simply because they understood that life is graded on the curve. The best jobs go to graduates from the best colleges, and because only the best-prepared students are accepted to those colleges, it is quixotic to expect parents to bypass an opportunity to send their children to the best elementary and secondary schools they can. The financial deregulation that enabled them to bid ever larger amounts for houses in the best school districts essentially guaranteed a housing bubble that would leave millions of families dangerously overextended.

So, like I’ve said many times, start funding the child so the parents can choose the best school for their children. This way they would not have to overextend themselves to get into what they think is a “good” school. This new found competition would also make every school better in the realities of having to compete for the trust of the parents and the students money. We can now fix both the public schools and the housing bubble at the same time.
h

Democrats in Congress have finally found a federal program they want to eliminate.
[snip]
it’s one that actually works and helps thousands of poor children.
[snip]
This fight has nothing to do with saving money.
[snip]
Kevin Chavis [snip] says, “If we were going to do what was best for the kids, then continuing it is a no-brainer. Those kids are thriving.” More than 90% of the families express high satisfaction with the program, according to researchers at Georgetown University.

Many of the parents we interviewed describe the vouchers as a “Godsend” or a “lifeline” for their sons and daughters. “Most of the politicians have choices on where to send their kids to school,” says William Rush, Jr., who has two boys in the program. “Why do they want to take our choices away?”
[snip]
the teachers unions have put out the word to Congress that they want all vouchers for private schools that compete with their monopoly system shut down.
[snip]
Ms. Norton contends that vouchers undermine support and funding for public schools.
[snip]
The $7,500 voucher is a bargain for taxpayers because it costs the public schools about 50% more, or $13,000 a year, to educate a child in the public schools.
[snip]
A new study on charter schools in Los Angeles County finds big academic gains when families have expanded choices for educating their kids.
[snip]
The reason unions want to shut the program down immediately isn’t because they’re afraid it will fail. They’re afraid it will succeed, and show that there is a genuine alternative to the national scandal that are most inner-city public schools.

Just think about this story. Vouchers are working in inner-city schools, yet teachers unions don’t care. The teacher unions don’t want competition. They don’t want to help truly educate poor children. They are only interested in money and their own self preservation. The next time you here a union member say it’s for the kids, you’ll know it is not for the kids, it is for the education bureaucrats.

If you are a teacher and you really do care about children’s education. You have to stand up to your union and tell them to stop this madness. If not, you run the risk of being generalized as a education bureaucrat that cares more about your salary, benefits and bloated pensions than the children you are charged with teaching.

The total tab, once you include pay for substitutes for teachers gone traveling, was $40,468.

——————————————————–
The District 46 board and administrators never mentioned they were paying the award-giver — not after Web pages for Prairieview School in Hainesville and Meadowview and Woodview schools in Grayslake touted the awards, not after press releases were sent out, not until our reporter started asking questions.
——————————————————–
But Superintendent Ellen Correll and board members should be ashamed of their lack of candor and suspicious of Blue Ribbon’s role in it. Even the name of the award, so similar to the U.S. Department of Education’s No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Schools awards, suggests a deliberate desire to confuse.

School leaders should have declined the awards, knowing they appeared to come with strings attached.

And they should apologize to taxpayers for allowing such generous travel spending under the guise of rewarding a job well done. One project cited as resulting from the trip, installation of SMART Board electronic chalkboards, could have been launched with fewer people staying closer to home, since other suburban districts already use the devices.

I would have to agree. There is an appearance of impropriety if nothing else.

Read more about this here and here.

• They represent the taxpayers not the teachers union or district administration
• The teacher unions have all the support and leverage during negotiations if the school board remains silent because they do the following:
  • Inform union members (Teachers) of their progress
  • Inform union officials of their progress
  • Inform union members of other school districts if they need vocal support
  • Use the local newspapers to their advantage
  • Wil use the PTO/PTA to garner support if necessary
• The school board cannot garner support from the public if they remain silent
• The object of the teachers unions is to isolate them from the public

If enough school board members, or at least one on every school board started speaking out they could garner support from the taxpayers easily. Taxpayers understand that many teachers are overpaid and receive raises and benefits that far exceed those of the general public. Visit the Champion News to look at teacher salaries.

District 46 board members agreed Monday night the SMART boards were a good educational tool in a pilot project that ran for nearly the final two months of the academic year. They voted to pay $33,041 to keep the nine SMART boards from the test program.

In addition, another 14 of the devices are expected to come to District 46 with about $71,000 obtained through a state education grant.

————————
Manufactured by SMART Technologies, the board is a high-tech version of a blackboard connected to a computer. Board members received a firsthand look at the SMART device during a presentation by three principals May 19.

Some District 46 administrators reported becoming interested in the SMART boards after attending a conference last December in South Carolina sponsored by Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Inc. District 46 paid $22,192 to South Carolina-based Blue Ribbon to study its buildings and make recommendations.

Notice when the district became interested in these boards. They became interested in them at a conference where they were given Blue Ribbon Awards after they paid the company to review the schools. These awards essentially cost the district just over $40,000 and buying equipment recommended at the conference.

On April 17-18, 2008, a team of seven homeschooled high schoolers swept the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) World Championship in Atlanta, Georgia, taking home a Winning Alliance Team trophy and the Amaze Award (awarded by the judges to a team whose uniqueness sets it apart from all other award categories). Team Overdrive, from Bridgewater, New Jersey, won four regional tournaments (an FTC record) during the season and racked up the two highest scores ever in the championships.

And they even get socialization that our public government schools like to use as an excuse against homeschooling.

“What really makes our team successful, I think, is how the team knows each other,” James comments. “We’re basically like family.” Team Overdrive’s support structure of parents and siblings is noticeable at tournaments: family members all wear bright yellow shirts. In Atlanta, 32 people—including grandparents, aunts, and uncles—showed up to cheer loudly for Team Overdrive from the stands.

“We’re learning and having fun at the same time,” adds Tyler, who hopes to enter computer science or mechanical engineering after graduating from high school. “We’re learning about real-world things like engineering and time management, how to give presentations in front of companies for fundraising, and how to work under pressure. But we’re also having fun with the other homeschooled students that are on the team.”

It’s a shame that rulings like the one in California and the article recently in Parade disparage homeschoolers. They are a varied and responsible group that cares about their childrens’ education. They strive to do what is right and in the majority of case homeschool students outperform their peers still in public government schools.

To recap the story, the Gavin Board President Barbara Mende and 3 fellow board members circumvented the no-bid contract laws to hire a mover by splitting the contract into 2 payments. When caught, she was convicted. Now, the remaining three board members involved have refused to resign and in fact one of them has been elected as the Board Vice President.

Three board members who approved illegal action by the former board president refused to resign from the Gavin School District 37 board.

Steve Moulis, Kristine Johnson and board president Phil Mack all defiantly refused to step down from the board Monday despite approving a vote last year that was deemed illegal last month by a Lake County Circuit Court Judge.

In fact, in an ironic twist, Moulis was elected board vice president Monday. Mack, the former vice president, moved up to president.

The shuffling took place after former president Barb Mende was kicked off the board for being convicted of bid stringing, a felony that could put her behind bars for up to three years.

This is not the first time school boards skirt the law and use no-bid contracts. The most egregious and costly are the use of consortiums, many run by former school superintendents, like the Illinois Energy Consortium. Grayslake District 46 did this with the purchase of over priced cleaning supplies from a referendum supporter. Yet, others throw out bids to make sure they get the vendor they want even if it costs ten of thousands more.

At least one district though has attempted to end the pay to play system and tries to do what is right. That districts is Cary District 26.

What’s not mentioned is South Carolina-based Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Inc. named the award winners after being paid $22,192 to assess seven District 46 schools. Documents obtained by the Daily Herald through the Freedom of Information Act show the district spent an extra $15,732 for 20 administrators and teachers to attend a five-day Blue Ribbon Schools conference and awards banquet in North Charleston, S.C., in December.

———————————————-
Specifics on how Grayslake Elementary academics would benefit from Blue Ribbon Schools were not cited in the initial award announcement, but Correll in February sent a letter to all district residents outlining numerous recommendations.

Total expenses related to Blue Ribbon Schools were $40,468, according to district documents. Correll said the costs were covered by properly tapping into a combination of nearly $89,500 available in federal grants and $200,000 from the superintendent’s professional development account.

I’m not sure where the letters went, but the portion of the district where I live did not receive the letter mentioned.

In following the recommendations of the paid consultant’s awards, the district is purchasing SMART boards, electronic blackboards connected to a computer. I am still not convinced these boards will really help increase a test scores. They are like any other technology introduced as a way to help students, but in the end turn out to be a gimick of an education company.

Classroom technology similar to an electronic chalkboard is cited as one of the academic benefits from Grayslake Elementary District 46’s hiring of Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Inc.

——————————————-
Part of the presentation noted how South Carolina-based Blue Ribbon Schools President/CEO Bart Teal found District 46 lacking in technology after studying its buildings last fall. The veteran educator’s company gives advice to schools on how to improve, and provides awards to clients typically promoted in news releases and on Web sites without mention of a financial arrangement.

SMART Technologies was one of the vendors at the Blue Ribbon Schools’ December conference.

Here are a few of the other suggestions:

• Having maps with student-friendly “I can” statements to promote ownership of learning standards at Prairieview, a pre-kindergarten through fourth grade school.

• Developing a more comprehensive new-teacher orientation plan at Meadowview, a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school.

• Making better use of test data to drive instruction at Frederick School. The building serves fifth- and sixth-graders.

• Creating a school song at Grayslake Middle School. Children in grades seven and eight attend the school.

• Implementing a student leadership group and homework clubs at Park Campus in Round Lake, a building for kindergarten through eighth-grade.

Some of those suggestions are good, others will do nothing to educate a child better. It appears most of these suggestions appears to have come from other educrats. I have a suggestion a couple of suggestions that will increase learning:

• Replace their whole language with a phonics based curriculum
• Replace their everyday math with a direct instruction curriculum

I highly recommend this book if you are at all interested in the problems facing this State and how it can be fixed.

Notice the following quotes in The Taxman Cometh [Emphasis mine]:

He explains that property taxes largely are determined by local government spending. So if taxing districts increase their spending, the tax rate will often increase to cover even if assessed property values go down.

And where does that money go:

As usual, the largest slice of the property tax pie will go to schools. After they receive 72 percent, 21 percent will go to local governments, including municipalities and fire, park and library districts. The remaining 7 percent will be distributed to the county, forest preserve and township governments.

It is time for groups to stop focusing on the Assessor and the assessment process and start focusing on the taxing bodies who continue to raise our taxes with impunity. Enough is enough, we need to stop the endless stream of taxes that are destroying our families.

The comment that shows the bias of this article is the following:

“If upheld, the California ruling will send shock waves nationwide,” says Richard Kahlenberg, the author of a number of books on education. He says the case “pits those who believe parental rights are paramount against those who place a premium on well-educated citizens.”

Homeschooling in no way pits parental rights against well-educated citizens. Homeschooling in fact makes better educated citizens than those currently taught in our failing public schools. The parental rights argument pits the rights of parents to direct their child’s education in the manner that is best for their child instead of what some government bureaucrat thinks is best.

Lake County already has the highest property taxes in the Midwest, and yet these school districts want more and more money. There seems to be a never ending stream of taxing methods desired by the schools.

I am not sure how Superintendent Correll can even say, voting to put a tax hike on the November ballot is not “backing a tax hike”. A referendum is a tax hike. A vote to support putting this on the ballot is supporting a tax hike.

Board Member, Jill Rohrer has is right. This is just a tax hike and families don’t want their taxes raised any more.

Mark Hannon’s comment about out-of-towners is plain ridiculous. From my understanding these out-of-towners only accounts for approximately 40% of the sales tax increase. The other 60% is still an increase on the residents of Lake County who already have the highest property taxes in the Midwest, which support the schools. Secondly, since we are on the Wisconsin border, this increase will just send more and more people over the border to make their purchases.

The Grayslake High District 127 had actually done the right thing for once, and voted to not support this tax increase. Since they overtaxing its taxpayers from their education and bond referendums from the past years, I was suprised at this move, but I do applaud them for this good decision.

Please call or Email The D46 School Board members and tell them to not raise our taxes anymore.

When will politicians get the message that they can’t keep raising taxes? When will they understand that the taxpayers are not an open wallet?

James is right, taxes hurt families and are gradually crippling our country. If you look at your tax bill that you just received you will see that your local schools are the major reason your property taxes are so high. These schools are overtaxing you, wasteful spending, and pathetic performance.

As property tax bills begin to appear in mailboxes throughout Kane and Kendall counties, state Sen. Chris Lauzen, an Aurora Republican, wants to help area residents understand their bills and provide information on a variety of cost-saving measures.

The best cost savings will be to lower property taxes instead of the annual unending increases.

Lauzen has partnered with the supervisors of assessments and treasurers from both counties to help answer questions on local residents’ property tax bills and to help explain where their tax dollars are distributed.

The largest percentage goes to the local school districts who spend the money on the following instead of the education of the children: (This is not an all inclusive list)

• Pay raises higher than those the taxpayers
• Outrageous end of career bonuses
• Retirement at age 55
• Overtaxing after referendums
• Use of bonds schemes to fleece the taxpayer more
• No bid contracts

Information also will be provided on a number of new homestead exemptions that have recently passed the General Assembly.

Sorry, Mr. Lauzen, but these new exemptions help only a minority of taxpayers, particularly Seniors and Veterans. Even for them, it will only slow the growth of their tax bills. If you wish, please e-mail Mr. Lauzen and ask him for real property tax reform instead of these meetings and feel good sessions.

It becomes very clear throughout the movie that the theories of the origin of life has no scientific basis. These theory that life sprang from an electrical charge has been pretty much abandoned. A couple of other theories being posited now are that life developed somehow through more complex crystals. And strangely enough, another theory is Aliens seeded the planet, i.e. Intelligent Design. Of course once you ask where that intelligent life came from they still have no idea. The alien theory was agreed to as possibility by the renowned atheist and evolutionary biologists, Richard Dawkins and author of The God Delusion.

The movie also explores why anyone who questioned Darwinian Theory using scientific evidence, publishes an article by someone in the Intelligent Design Field or even writes an article about Intelligent Design they are fired or forced to resign. Ben very clearly demonstrates that Darwinians believe more in their worldview than actual scientific evidence.

One major argument from the Darwinist is that Intelligent Design should not be taught in schools because science is already atrocious in our public government schools. How interesting, our schools claim they want to to teach our children how to think and yet here is another example of how actual scientific research is squelched in favor of the indoctrination of a particular worldview.

Feel free to email the Grayslake Board and thank them for making this decision in favor of the taxpayers. I don’t always agree with their decision, but this a good one and they deserve our thanks. I have already emailed them my thanks.

On the other hand you may want to email your frustration and disgust to Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik and the Village Board. Mayor Kovarik supports this tax grab. Help make sure the Gurnee Board gets the real numbers so they are not deceived into thinking this tax swap is actually for education. Make sure they understand only7.5% of this tax increase will end up back in education.

This is the email I sent to Mayor Kovarik and the Gurnee Board:

Another assualt at East Leyden High School near Maywood, IL

What’s behind today’s epidemic of teacher-student sex?

This goes hand in hand with recent stories as well:

• Convicted Felon abortionist is Chicago Public School principal
• Fired Cop accused of misconduct hired as school security chief

They also stopped flag football as well while they review their policy.

Many schools have already banned dodge ball. They’ve removed teeter totters and swings. Then they wonder why the boys have so much energy and can’t sit still in class. They then turn to drugging the children. It would be so much easier just to let the children get out their energy during recess instead of putting them on Ritalin.

Here is what some of the parents think about this (see the full article for all the comments):

And of course the PTA moms tow the party line and support the school no matter what. One day they will learn the truth about how their school is spending tremendously more than what is neccessary and still not producing the great education as expected.

School Administrators, please stop drugging the children and let them play some. Let them burn off the energy on the playground so they will be more respectful in the classroom. Use some common sense please.

Let’s explain this for Mr. Billis and everyone else to understand who the real culprit is in the high taxes.

Note: The following scenarios are based on a jurisdiction that has two identical homes each initially valued at $5,000.

Scenario 1 = The taxing body levies $500
    District EAV = $5,000 * 2 = $10,000
    Tax Rate = (500/10,000) * 100 = $5.00 per $100 EAV
    Tax Bill = (5000 * 5) / 100 = $250 for each home

Scenario 2 = The taxing body levies $550 (10% increase) while no change in assessment is made
    District EAV = $5,000 * 2 = $10,000
    Tax Rate = (550/10,000) * 100 = $5.50 per $100 EAV
    Tax Bill = (5000 * 5.5) / 100 = $275 for each home (10% levy increase resulted in a 10% tax bill increase)

Scenario 3 = The taxing body levies $550 (10% increase) while assessment increases by 10%
    District EAV = $5,500 * 2 = $11,000
    Tax Rate = (550/11,000) * 100 = $5.00 per $100 EAV
    Tax Bill = (5500 * 5) / 100 = $275 for each home (10% levy increase and a 10% assessment increase result in a 10% tax bill increase)

So which caused the increase, the levy increase of the assessment increase. See scenario 2 and scenario 4 for the answer that the levy is the real culprit not the assessment.

Scenario 4 = The taxing body levies $500 (0% increase) while assessment is increased 10%
    District EAV = $5,500 * 2 = $11,000
    Tax Rate = (500/11,000) * 100 = $4.55 per $100 EAV
    Tax Bill = (5500 * 4.55) / 100 = $250 for each home (0% levy increase and 10% in assessment leaves tax bill unchanged as scenario 1)

Why did this happen? Simple, the increase in the assessment lowered the tax rate which meant taxes remain the same. So, the levy increase causes the tax increase not the assessment.

Let’s look at one more example to again show everyone that the tax levies cause the increase, not the assessment.

Scenario 5 = The taxing body levies $517.50 (3.5% increase) while assessment is decreased 10%
    District EAV = $4,500 * 2 = $9,000
    Tax Rate = (517.5/9,000) * 100 = $5.75 per $100 EAV
    Tax Bill = (4500 * 5.75) / 100 = $258.75 for each home (3.5% levy increase and 10% assessment decrease still causes a tax increase)

This is a complex issue, but when you look at the numbers, it becomes very clear.

Source: The Township Assessors’ Guide by Steven W. Stanger, Deerfield, Illinois Assessor, pages 20-22, © 2007

Let’s hope the police find the culprit soon and that this was just a practical joke.

And we wonder why the public government schools aren’t successful at teaching our children. The leadership of CPS make poor choices for principals. They can’t even review their principals properly. It is not a stretch to say that these poor principals can’t evaluate or choose their teachers properly either.

This years crop of principals and staff choices won’t help these statistics either. See

• Convicted Felon abortionist is Chicago Public School principal
• Principal Accused of Stealing $35,000
• Fired Cop accused of misconduct hired as school security chief
• Student injured by school worker

It’s not like CPS didn’t know there were issues with their principals. Here are 2 stories about he situation:

• Chicago Public Schools Target Struggling Principals
  
  

  On Wednesday, the Board of Education is set to approve the policy, which creates a system of “support and remediation” for contract principals, who rarely are threatened with dismissal for performance because it is costly to break their four-year contracts.

• From 2004, Chicago principals get graded
  
  

  Although half of teachers responded positively to the survey, giving principals As and Bs, 17.3 percent gave Cs, and one-third (33.5 percent) gave out negative scores of Ds and Fs.

Here is the text of the resolution: