Guest Editorial: D150 “warehousing” minorities, poverty-stricken

In light of the serious issues on the District #150 Board of Education agenda this evening and the decision the board members are being asked by the Administration to make, let’s take the time to review some accurate data.  (Note:  this data is extracted from the Interactive Illinois Report Card, found at http://iirc.niu.edu/District.aspx?districtID=48072150025)

  1. District #150 Overall (2008):

    Student Demographics:            

    Black                           61.1%
    White                           30.5%
    Hispanic                       5.5%
    Asian                            2.6%
    Multiracial                    0.2%
    Native American           0.0%

    Low Income:                70%

    District Spending vs. State Average (2006-07)

                                                                District                         State

    Teacher Salaries/Benefits          48.9%                                      43.0%
    Other Instructional Costs            3.8%                                        7.1%
    Student Support                       12.8%                                      11.6%
    Admin/Operations                    24.0%                                      22.7%
    Building/Equipment                     2.4%                                        7.4%
    Debt Service                              5.6%                                        7.1%
    Other                                         2.5%                                        1.1% 

  2. Kingman Primary School (2008):

    Student Demographics:            
    Black                           57.6%
    White                           32.2%
    Hispanic                       10.2%
    Asian                              0.0%
    Multiracial                      0.0%
    Native American             0.0%

    Enrollment:                   304

    Average Class Size:                             
    Kindergarten                16.0
    Grade 1                        15.3
    Grade 2                        16.7
    Grade 3                        13.7
    Grade 4                        13.5
    Grade 5                        13.0

    Low Income:                93.1%
    Mobility:                       61.4%

    Adequate Yearly Progress: 
    The school is not making AYP.
    The school is not making AYP in Reading.
    The school is making AYP in Mathematics.
    The school was identified for School Improvement in accordance with NCLB.
    The 2008-09 the Federal Improvement Status is Choice.
    The 2008-09 State Improvement Status is Academic Early Warning Year 1.

  3. Irving Primary School (2008):

    Student Demographics:
    Black                           69.3%
    Hispanic                       22.9%
    White                             6.1%
    Asian                              1.1%
    Multiracial                      0.6%
    Native American             0.0%

    Enrollment:                   362

    Average Class Size:                             
    Kindergarten                17.0
    Grade 1                        15.6
    Grade 2                        15.6
    Grade 3                        16.2
    Grade 4                        18.3
    Grade 5                        17.7

    Low Income:                95.6%
    Mobility:                       35.1%

    Adequate Yearly Progress:
    The school is not making AYP.
    The school is not making AYP in Reading.
    The school is making AYP in Mathematics.
    The school was identified for School Improvement in accordance with NCLB.
    The 2008-09 the Federal Improvement Status is Choice.
    The 2008-09 State Improvement Status is Academic Early Warning Year 1.

  4. Garfield Primary School (2008):

    Student Demographics:
    Black                           74.9%
    White                           17.1%
    Hispanic                         7.4%
    Asian                              0.3%
    Multiracial                      0.3%
    Native American             0.0%

    Enrollment:                   299

    Average Class Size:                            
      Kindergarten                11.0
    Grade 1                        17.0
    Grade 2                        18.3
    Grade 3                        19.3
    Grade 4                        15.3

    Low Income:                94.0%
    Mobility:                       45.6%

    Adequate Yearly Progress:
    The school is not making AYP.
    The school is not making AYP in Reading.
    The school is making AYP in Mathematics.
    The school was identified for School Improvement in accordance with NCLB.
    The 2008-09 the Federal Improvement Status is Restructuring.
    The 2008-09 State Improvement Status is Academic Early Warning Year 2.

  5. Tyng Primary School (2008):

    Student Demographics:
    Black                           87.1%
    White                             9.2%
    Hispanic                         3.1%
    Asian                              0.5%
    Multiracial                      0.0%
    Native American             0.0%

    Enrollment:                   381

    Average Class Size:
    Kindergarten                16.8
    Grade 1                        19.3
    Grade 2                        14.4
    Grade 3                        19.4
    Grade 4                        13.3
    Grade 5                        19.0

    Low Income:                96.9%
    Mobility:                       59.4%

    Adequate Yearly Progress:
    The school is not making AYP.
    The school is not making AYP in Reading.
    The school is not making AYP in Mathematics.
    The school was identified for School Improvement in accordance with NCLB.
    The 2008-09 the Federal Improvement Status is Choice SES.
    The 2008-09 State Improvement Status is Academic Early Warning Year 2.

Of the four schools cited above that the Board of Education is considering closing, 93% – 97% of the student populations are low income and 68% – 94% of the student populations are minorities.  All four schools are Title I schools; the District’s past practice to determine Title I qualification is to base it on the applications received for the Free and Reduced Lunch Program.

All four schools are not making Adequate Yearly Progress and are in the State Improvement Academic Early Warning Status.  Because they are Title I schools, they have also been identified for Federal Improvement Status ranging from Choice to Restructuring.

Since the 2004-05 school year, what has this Administration and Board done?  They closed Blaine Sumner and White Middle Schools, and tonight they are proposing the closing of Kingman Primary School at the end of the 2008-09 school year and Irving Primary School at the end of the 2009-10 school year.  Garfield and Tyng Primary Schools are also being considered for closing.  They plan to build two new Community Schools (Glen Oak and Harrison), and have discussed some sort of consolidation with the Lincoln and Woodruff campuses to address the needs of the Kingman, Irving, and Lincoln students.

Behind all the passionate rhetoric, both opposing and supporting the District’s plans, one thing is clear:  all the schools targeted for closure are south of the invisible Forest Hill-War Memorial Drive boundary.

These neighborhood schools are not to be individually replaced with new facilities; rather the Administration is recommending to the Board of Education that these neighborhood schools be combined into much larger community schools.   The rationale behind this is financial.  These decisions are not based on what is in the best interest of the students’ education, as stated by Board Vice President Wolfmeyer in the Sunday, April 19th Peoria Journal Star.

A pattern is emerging.  The District has targeted the schools with the highest numbers of  low income and minority students, and schools not making AYP in both State and Federal improvement status, to close and combine.  These schools receive significant Title I funding to supplement the educational services provided the students, including funding for teachers’ salaries. 

No schools north of the Forest Hill-War Memorial Drive invisible boundary have been targeted for closure.

Whether they wish to acknowledge it or not, by their recommendations and actions, the Administration and Board of Education are creating a perception of warehousing the minority children and the children of poverty.

There is another name for this practice, segregation.

–PrairieCelt

Should citizens force D150 bond issue to a referendum?

Elaine Hopkins thinks so.

You may recall that District 150, despite having just borrowed $30 million in tax-anticipation warrants at the beginning of the year to make payroll, is already running out of money again and needs to borrow $35 million more. This time they would raise the money through working cash bonds which will be repaid via property taxes over the next several years. Here’s the rub:

If 10 percent of voters petition the district to take the sale of the cash bonds to referendum, the district would run into a wall, having to wait until November, or plead with a judge to hold a special election, [interim controller Norm] Durflinger added.

Hopkins says “some people are now looking at this petition option.” “It could be a bargaining chip to stop future school closings, or could be affirmed on its own,” or it could be a way to get District 150 “management” to “resign in shame,” she says.

My take: When I first heard about this idea (of forcing a referendum on the bonds), I have to say, it didn’t thrill me. First of all, public schooling is an essential service and should be funded. Secondly, I just finished waging an unsuccessful effort to defeat the public facilities tax referendum, and I just don’t have the energy to do that again (so soon, at least). Thirdly, I have a hard time getting over the irony of museum tax supporters like Hopkins suddenly getting all concerned about wasting tax dollars. Apparently throwing $40 million down the drain on a museum is okay, but $35 million to pay teachers is unacceptable.

However, the more I think about it, the more I think forcing a referendum may not be such a bad idea. Why? Consider:

  1. They have been eluding voter accountability long enough. When District 150 wanted to build new schools, the money for that building program should have been submitted to the public via referendum. But it wasn’t. District 150, with the help of our state legislators (including then-state representative Schock) got legislation passed allowing District 150 to access the Public Building Commission for its building program, bypassing the voters and allowing them to raise our property taxes without a referendum. Practically speaking, this also meant they didn’t have to have public buy-in on the siting and design of the new school buildings.
  2. They have passed up other potential revenue. District 150 could have supported other school districts in the county and forced a 1/4% sales tax referendum onto the April ballot that, if passed, would have helped all county school districts get money for infrastructure needs, but they didn’t. District 150 officials won’t speak on this topic for attribution, but privately say that the reason they didn’t support this was because (a) they were asked not to by museum supporters such as Caterpillar and the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, who you may recall sent letters to all the school districts pressuring them to keep this off the ballot so it wouldn’t jeopardize the museum tax from passing, and (b) they didn’t want a new revenue stream right before they negotiated a new teachers contract because they thought it could lead to demands for higher pay/benefits. Hey, if they’re looking for ways to avoid getting more revenue, maybe they would favor forcing the bond issuance to a referendum.
  3. More money won’t resolve the root problem: mismanagement. We’ve been through this kind of crisis once already. We’ve already closed schools so that District 150 could allegedly get their fiscal house in order. Why are we going through this again — and so soon?

    • It is not just because of revenue shortfalls. This crisis is often explained as merely a revenue problem — that everything would be hunky-dory if it hadn’t been for the recession or reductions in state aid. That would be believable except that no other school district around here is in quite the crisis as District 150. For example, Pekin’s school district actually has a surplus. While their FY08 budget does have a planned deficit built into it, it’s covered not by loans, but reserves that have been saved up over several years — most recently FY07.
    • Savings from last round of closures were squandered. In 2007, District 150 closed White and Blaine-Sumner schools. However, they didn’t sell Blaine-Sumner, but remodeled it (including adding air conditioning) and turned it into district offices for about 80 workers. They did eventually sell the White School building for $750,000, but they also acquired the former Social Security Administration building on Knoxville and spent $1.27 million to remodel it to house their “transition to success academy.” Is it really any wonder that the district was unable to put up a surplus and save for a rainy day?

    By and large, we still have the same management team in place now as was in place then. If they were unable to properly manage the last crisis, why should we have any confidence that money given them this time will be any better managed?

From what I’ve heard, the worst that could happen if a referendum is forced is that the referendum could fail, the district could become insolvent and be taken over by the state or, possibly, the city. I’m beginning to think that’s not such a bad outcome. Small changes in the makeup of the school board over the past five years doesn’t appear to be working; a complete overhaul of the administration may be necessary.

Still, my mind isn’t totally made up. If anyone can give me reasons to have confidence in the current administration and their stated plans for improvement, I’m all ears.

Inconsistent enforcement of non-discrimination ordinance raises questions

EmergePeoria thinks the City of Peoria is a little inconsistent when it comes to not discriminating against “protected classes” of citizens.

At issue is the City’s recent smackdown of the Elbo Room bar. In case you’ve been out of town for several weeks and missed the story, here’s the scoop: the owner of the bar posted a sign outside stating, “We are not a gay bar. We are a karaoke bar. […] Diesel is down the street.” (“Diesel” is, in fact, a gay bar.) There were protests, allegations of “homophobia” and other histrionics in response to this perceived discrimination. Then the City’s deputy liquor commissioner (Councilman Eric Turner) stepped in and sent the owner a letter threatening to revoke his liquor license and take other legal action if he were observed to be discriminating against gays in the future.

The thing is, the City didn’t take similar action against other bars that had been turning away black patrons on the pretense of dress code violations. EmergePeoria observes:

In 2007 the Downtown Peoria bars were unaccepting of Black citizens supposedly because of their dress and demeanor which was considered to be “intimidating”. Instead of making downtown bars comply in the acceptance of Black patrons, the City Council, under the leadership of Mayor Ardis, undertook the notion of liquor expansion to have alternate places for “Blacks to go”…. In other words, the rights of Blacks are not protected, were minimized and only compartmentalized by this city and it’s council, whereas the rights of gays have been expressed to have somehow been protected.

In April 2003, the City added “sexual orientation” to its list of individuals or groups against which you cannot discriminate relating to employment and public accommodations. Already on that list: race. Yet that group is not being as stridently defended by the Deputy Liquor Commissioner as the newest addition. Why? Is separate-but-equal okay for some groups but not others in the eyes of the City?

EmergePeoria is right — there is definitely some inconsistency going on here.