…get ready for your taxes to go up some more, courtesy of School District 150 with the cooperation of the Illinois State Legislature.
On Nov. 29, the Illinois House joined the Senate in overriding the Governor’s amendatory veto of SB2477 and allowing School District 150 to get bonding authority from the Public Building Commission for a period of five years to build new school buildings. The Governor’s veto would have required a referendum to obtain the bonding authority, but thanks to the override, the taxpayers will not get a say.
Now, instead of our tax rate going down in the next couple of years as older PBC bonds are retired, the tax rate will stay the same or possibly (likely, in my opinion) go up.
Here’s an interesting quote reported by WHOI News:
“I think the most important thing for students, parents and the people looking to relocate to the school district is their children will be in modern educational facilities that are designed for students in the 21st century,” [District 150 Treasurer] Cahill said.
Let me ask you, dear readers, are “modern educational facilities that are designed for students in the 21st century” the “most important thing” to you? Do you think it’s the most important thing for those looking to relocate? When you’re evaluating a school district, is the most important thing to you the age of the school buildings?
Or do you think student performance might be a bigger factor? Or maybe crime? Or what about good teachers? How about taxes? Do you think property taxes have an effect on where people choose to live?
Of course all those things are more important. Nobody moves into a school district because they have shiny new buildings. A building never taught a child. And taxes and student achievement are the biggest reasons people choose to live in Morton, Germantown Hills, or even East Peoria, rather than Peoria.
So the school board keeping the tax rate up while simultaneously focusing all their energy on issues with no correlation to student achievement (i.e., new school buildings) is only going to exacerbate the district’s problems.
I am reminded of the little monkey statue that my mother showed me as a child, … See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil — mixed up priorities. The quote about ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ is once again coming to pass — it plays in Peoria! 🙁
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO ONE THING: if you have no encouragement to study in the home, you will not study in a new, modern educational facility. HAVE THE GUTS TO PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT SHOULD BE, INSIDE THE HOME! GRANTED, THERE ARE MANY HOMES YOU WOULD NOT CALL A HOME, BUT SOMEONE EVEN IN THOSE PLACES ARE IN CHARGE. UNTIL OUR SOCIETY CHANGES BACK, FORGET ABOUT OUR KIDS MAKING IT.
RomanII is correct, the problem in Distrcit 150 is in the home or lack thereof. That is District 150’s biggest problem. Children raised in homes of children or passed onto a grand parent. In most cases, these are single parents with more than one kid from different fathers. There is no home life for some of these kids. That is a tough cycle to break. Some if this can be broke. Stop handing these people a check every month, stop rewarding them for children born out of wedlock, and make them start being responsible for their children in education, health, and welfare. Go after the absent fathers. Before they spend $5000 on 20″ rims for a 8 year old car, they pay for their children’s medical and education and welfare.
It’s second biggest problem is this district is top heavy with administrators. Time to cut some of these desk pushers and get down to the brass tax of education.
The third problem with district 150 is that it’s buildings, a lot of them, are too old and need replaced. If this district consolidated some of it’s schools, tore down the old buildings and built some new ones, it would look better to someone from out of town, than it does now. Do new buildings make for a better enviroment? No, not always. But newer or new schools that are streamlined to students needs and education do make a difference.
Emtronics has a point about new schools being “streamlined to students needs.” New buildings can and will go a long way in attracting new [better?] teachers. This may sound trivial, but a new high-tech building might just stimulate the teaching/learning process.
On the other hand, I know far to many teachers, etc who say that they DREAD dealing with the parents of many of their students. Will there ever be away to hold parents accountable?
Before anyone says it….I am not knocking Dist#150 teachers.
I’m not knocking D150 either; this problem is not simply regional, it’s societal.
I have a good friend who lives in Milwaukee. She has a degree in early childhood education and a master’s in curriculum development. For the past number of years, she has been a kindergarten teacher for Milwaukee Public Schools; her particular school is inner-city and is year-round.
She once told me a story of a parent-teacher conference she had. She was trying to explain why she felt the child was not performing up to her potential and how the child could improve when the mother leaned back in her chair, folded her arms and declared (in the presence of the under-performing child) “How can you teach my kids anything — you’re white.”
Other times my friend commented how achieving consistent attendance at her school is extremely difficult because the parents frequently pull their kids out of school and relocate, leaving no forwarding information.
The problem is not one that will be fixed by a pretty building with a state-of-the-art computer network. It won’t be cured by a building within walking distance of the lion exhibit. And no matter what the governmental officials say, no amount of local, state or federal funds can buy a solution.
We live in a society where people generally don’t look out for one another’s needs, where people don’t know (or don’t care to know) their neighbors, and where most of the messages from the media (tv, movies, music, whatever) say that other people (adults, teachers, police or any other authority figures) aren’t worth respecting. And if kids grow up in a “home” where the parents didn’t respect each other enough to get or stay married, who is going to teach them how to respect other people, particularly teachers who might be from a different race, neighborhood or socio-economic background? That’s not to say that there haven’t been and continue to be teachers who work extra hard to make a difference in the lives of the children. But the ultimate responsibility is that of the parents.