All posts by C. J. Summers

I am a fourth-generation Peorian, married with three children.
Peoria Public Library

Library board picks site by Menards

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HOI News is reporting that the Peoria Public Library board has picked a site for the new north library branch — an undeveloped parcel behind the new Menards off of Allen Road (there’s a picture of the lot on HOI’s site, so click the link to see it).

The cost for the 6.12 acre lot will be $1.67 million.

Board members say the site was picked based on price.

The land developer has agreed to keep industrial businesses off the lots surrounding the library site for aesthetic reasons.

I find that last line amusing. As if there is any aesthetically pleasing commercial area in the fifth district!

The story also mentioned that the board voted to not expand Lakeview, as expected.

Education, State of Illinois

Illinois chosen as part of tailored NCLB pilot program

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The Journal Star (AP) reports that Illinois was one of six states chosen to “write their own prescriptions for ailing schools under the Bush administration’s signature education law,” i.e., No Child Left Behind, or NCLB.

This press release from the Illinois State Board of Education outlines their “prescription” for our ailing schools:

Illinois receives additional flexibility to help schools meet federal NCLB requirements

One of 6 states accepted into new U.S. Dept. of Education pilot program; flexibility targets low-performing schools earlier with tailored resources

Springfield — Illinois State Superintendent of Education Christopher A. Koch announced today that Illinois has been chosen to participate in a federal pilot program to provide additional flexibility and tools to assist schools in meeting federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements. The U.S. Department of Education selected Illinois as one of six states to participate in the new pilot program that allows the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to focus additional resources and efforts on schools and districts across the state with targeted efforts.

“Our state testing data shows that there are many different reasons why schools fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) measures. Current NCLB guidelines are one-size-fits-all, and treating all schools the same is not an effective approach, just as treating each student the same is not effective,” said Supt. Koch. “With this additional flexibility we will be able to identify and focus our efforts on the students that need it the most. I’m excited about this opportunity to take more immediate action to improve our lowest-performing schools.”

With the U.S. Department of Education’s ‘Differentiated Accountability’ pilot program, ISBE can use different strategies, providing additional resources, techniques and approaches to help all students succeed. Illinois’ approval is conditioned on demonstrating that state assessments administered in 2007-08 are fully compliant with NCLB. The overarching goal of NCLB is for all students to meet or exceed standards in reading and mathematics by 2014.

Because of the flexibility, low-performing schools in Illinois will begin offering additional tutoring earlier to students. Currently, schools that fail to make AYP in the same subject area two consecutive years must offer public school choice (PSC) and tutoring services after three years. Under the pilot, schools will offer either school choice or tutoring after failing to make AYP for two consecutive years and both options after failing for three consecutive years.

With school choice, students must be given the option to attend a public school that is not identified for improvement. However, in smaller districts, this option isn’t always available to students. By implementing tutoring as an earlier option, students will have access to additional services such as academic assistance in reading and math, to take place before school, after school or during the summer.

Also, ISBE will be able to differentiate between low-performing schools under the new pilot program. Schools and districts will continue to move through the process of improvement each year they do not make AYP, however, instead of all schools failing to meet state standards being labeled as in ‘need of improvement’, under the new system, schools and districts will be classified as either in the ‘focused’ or ‘comprehensive’ category. Schools and districts that make AYP in the “ALL students” subgroup, but not in one or more of the other subgroups would be placed in the ‘focused’ category, while schools that fail to meet state standards in the “ALL students” subgroup would be identified as ‘comprehensive.’

Illinois’ testing data shows that schools in the ‘comprehensive’ category are achieving lower than those in the ‘focused’ category and would greatly benefit more from intensive and specific interventions. In addition, ISBE would also eliminate ‘corrective action’ as a school designation of improvement. The corrective designation for schools will be replaced with a third year of either ‘focused school improvement’ or ‘comprehensive school improvement so that interventions have longer to work.’

The state’s lowest-performing schools will also be eligible to participate in an intensive ‘Priority Schools’ initiative. This initiative aims to make drastic changes that produce significant achievement gains as quickly as possible.

The five other states approved for the pilot include Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland and Ohio. A total of 17 states submitted proposals for the program. Each state’s proposal, including Illinois’, was reviewed by a panel of nationally recognized experts. In return for the additional flexibility, each state has to commit to building their capacity for school reform; take the most significant actions for the lowest-performing schools, including addressing the issue of teacher effectiveness; and use data to determine the method of differentiation and categories of intervention.

ISBE will begin implementing portions of the proposal during the 2008-09 school year with full implementation in the 2009-10 year.

2008 Campaign

From the archives: “How to write a political ad”

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Since we’re entering campaign season in earnest now (only five months until the big election), I thought it might be a good time to reprint one of my favorite posts from the first year of my blog. It references the gubernatorial election from that time, but is generally applicable to any election. Enjoy.

“How to write a political ad,” from The Peoria Chronicle, 2/16/2006:

I’ve been watching the ads on TV being run by Illinois gubernatorial candidates, and I think I’ve figured out what it takes to write good copy for these things:

  1. Be as vague as possible. Problems are complex, and people have short attention spans, so steer clear of anything resembling a specific suggestion. In fact, if you can get away with saying only, “Me good, them bad,” just leave it at that.
  2. Passionately embrace outcomes only a comic-book villain would oppose. For instance, say you’re for “better schools,” “balancing the budget,” and “clean water.” This will set you apart from the other candidates who, I assume, are the Joker and the Riddler.
  3. Remember, a picture says a thousand lies. Show lots of pictures of yourself spending quality time with your family; that will give your family something to watch while you’re out on the road the next several months shilling for campaign contributions and brokering endorsement deals. And be sure to include the election-winning illusion that you’re spending your mornings in public schools reading to children because you’ve devoted your life to volunteerism.
  4. Attack your opponent’s record — but more importantly, attack his motives. It’s much easier to win against a corrupt political insider with lust for power than someone who’s simply pursuing a different path to the same goals as you. When talking about your opponent(s), always be sure to show unflattering pictures of them in black and white with an ominous musical underscore. Cynicism and ad hominem attacks are the road to victory.
  5. Finally, point people to your website, which has the same empty rhetoric as your political ad. This is where you can really put your doublespeak skills to work. An actual, complete quote from one candidate’s website explaining her commitment to leadership: “In every area of State government and especially in the Governor’s office, this State’s high standing for competence and leadership has suffered during the last three years.” The funny thing? This candidate works in state government.

And everyone wonders why voter turnout is so low.

Uncategorized

Avid or Final Cut?

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Sorry to invade the Chronicle with a work-related post — I rarely ever do this — but I thought there might be some other video editors out there that would be willing to share their opinion with me. We’re considering whether to stick with Avid or switch to Final Cut Pro for our editing suite at work. If you have any experience with one or both systems, what’s your advice from an editing standpoint? I’m thinking in terms of ease of use/learning curve, quality of output, tools/features, etc.

2008 Campaign, Peoria Journal Star

Callahan a candidate in search of an issue

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I think my readers know that I’m no fan of Aaron Schock. But seriously, is this the best his Democratic challenger can do?

Congressional candidate Colleen Callahan is criticizing her opponent Aaron Schock for spending too much time fundraising, being “AWOL” and not responding to issues.

Apparently, Callahan cut-and-pasted Karen McDonald’s “Word on the Street” column onto her campaign letterhead and faxed it out as a press release. And then McDonald dutifully reported on it. Talk about a “news cycle.”

Well, I guess it’s a win-win for Callahan and McDonald. Callahan gets some free publicity, and McDonald got Schock to finally return her call.

City of Peoria

Peoria Urban Living Initiative wants your feedback

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In November 2007, the city council approved a plan called The Peoria Urban Living Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to attract homeowners back to the Heart of Peoria. According to Chris Setti, the city’s Six Sigma black belt in charge of this project, “it has been a collaboration of the City, Caterpillar, OSF, Methodist, Bradley and the County. One method we are using to formulate our plan is to collect some feedback through a brief survey.”

The survey is online here. Please click on the link and take a minute to fill it out.

“The goal of the survey is to collect information on what people look for in a neighborhood, which types of incentives might be most attractive, and how much interest there is in certain areas of the City,” Setti tells me.

I’m not exactly clear as to why the Uplands and Arbor District neighborhoods were not included in the map of the “west bluff” on this survey. My guess is that they feel these are stable neighborhoods that need no help. I’d buy that for the Uplands, but the Arbor District is a different story since Bradley’s razing of two blocks of houses there to make way for a five-story parking deck. Dozens of homes there have turned from owner-occupied to rentals; that neighborhood will need as much incentivizing as any other neighborhood to get homeowners investing there again.

Peoria Public Schools

State Board of Education sees D150 plan differently than Regional Superintendent

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You may recall that the Regional Superintendent of Schools, Gerald Brookhart, stated recently that District 150’s plan to shorten Wednesdays by 90 minutes each week conforms to the State’s school code. Well, apparently the Illinois State Board of Education sees things differently.

The school code requires students to receive a minimum of five clock hours (300 minutes) of instructional time per school day. If 90 minutes are cut from Wednesdays, then students would receive less than five instructional hours those days. District 150 tried to say that was acceptable because the average number of instructional hours per day over the course of a week would still be more than five. They also tried to label Wednesdays “improvement days,” which are covered by other provisions of the school code. Education reporter Dave Haney reports that ISBE officials rejected those arguments:

[The ISBE] said improvement days are designed for all schools in a district, not just certain schools as the district has proposed, and the half-days are limited to specific school improvement topics listed in the local school improvement plan.

What’s more, the ISBE said the school code mandates a minimum of 300 minutes of instruction every day.

In response, District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton has floated the idea of only cutting 45 or 60 minutes from Wednesdays instead of 90. No matter what happens, Hinton is determined to cut at least some time from the school day. “‘The time to collaborate and look at the data, it has to happen – (teachers) just don’t have time to grow professionally,’ said Hinton, who added the district needs to implement change now if it wants to see drastic student improvement,” the Journal Star reported.

Hinton has never explained why the school day has to be cut in order to provide professional development time. The District 150 Watch group gave Hinton several suggestions for how that goal could be accomplished without cutting the school day. Why doesn’t he use one of those suggestions?

2008 Campaign

Do we really need a speech on patriotism?

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Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama gave a speech all about patriotism today. You can read it here.

My reaction: Who cares? Can we talk about something relevant?

Obama says at the outset that the topic of patriotism “is worth considering…because the question of who is – or is not – a patriot all too often poisons our political debates, in ways that divide us rather than bringing us together.” So, I take that to mean his audience is those who question his patriotism. Is that really a large percentage of the population? Because I thought the only ones questioning his patriotism were those who believed anything and everything forwarded to them via e-mail — you know, those phony Internet rumors that he’s a Muslim, that he took his oath of office on the Koran, that he doesn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. Are those people likely to hear this speech, let alone believe it? And other than those people, who’s questioning his patriotism?

All I know is, I’d rather hear some substantive debates between the two candidates on the issues facing our country — in fact, some of the issues that Obama brought up himself at the beginning of the speech:

…health care, jobs, energy, education, and retirement security… [and] values. How do we keep ourselves safe and secure while preserving our liberties? How do we restore trust in a government that seems increasingly removed from its people and dominated by special interests? How do we ensure that in an increasingly global economy, the winners maintain allegiance to the less fortunate? And how do we resolve our differences at a time of increasing diversity?

A debate on any of those subjects would be welcome. This election isn’t a contest over who’s more patriotic, so let’s skip the rhetorical, platitude-filled speeches and get down to the nitty-gritty. That would be much more interesting and useful.

Peoria Public Schools

Brookhart: The plan I haven’t seen follows state code

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I thought the same thing as Billy Dennis when I first read the HOI News report of Regional Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gerald Brookhart’s take on District 150’s latest plan to shorten Wednesdays for most primary schools: “Brookhart approves of a plan he hasn’t seen yet.”

The Regional Superintendent of Schools says this plan does follow state code because the total number of hours the kids will be in school each week meets state requirements.

That’s at the beginning of the HOI story. And then the same story concludes:

The regional superintendent says they have not received an official plan from District 150 to shorten the school day, so until they have that nothing can happen.

So, when he says the plan “does follow state code,” he’s basing that on what, exactly? Normally, regulators withhold comment until they have an official request or plan in hand so they can give a definitive answer, rather than one based on speculation or preliminary plans that are subject to change.