The Peoria City Council and District 150 Board of Education met at Valeska-Hinton School Tuesday evening to reopen the lines of communication that had become strained over the past seven years. It’s easy to see why — the two bodies are working from different philosophies of school design.
District 150
First, we’ll look at District 150’s point of view. School Board President David Gorenz and District Superintendent Ken Hinton kicked off the meeting by giving a “State of the District” address. In the course of that presentation, it was explained that the single biggest challenge the school district has right now is poverty. Seventy percent of the students in District 150 are considered to be at poverty level, and that’s just the overall number. Some schools have a poverty rate over 90%, leading Gorenz to observe that our schools are more segregated today than they’ve ever been — not racially, but economically.
Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between poverty and achievement; i.e., as poverty goes up, achievement goes down. This was compellingly illustrated using a scatter chart.
The School Board concludes that the course of action they need to take is to “strive to eliminate high-poverty schools.” They want to accomplish that by offering “school choice” within the district through the use of larger magnet schools. Each school would have a “strong core curriculum with specialized programs at individual schools.” Specialized programs are things like math/science/technology, fine arts, Edison, career tech, university lab, and language studies. Parents would have the choice of sending one child to the school that specializes in Fine Arts, and another to an Edison school, etc.
This would allow children from wealthier areas of town to attend school in poorer areas and vice versa. The model for this strategy is Valeska-Hinton Early Learning Center. Superintendent Hinton mentioned that there’s still a waiting list to get into that school, and that they at one time even lost their Title I funding because the level of poverty had dropped so low — even though the school is located in a high-poverty area.
City of Peoria
The council was not unanimous in their opinions. Several of them simply asked for more data and information so they could study the issue more closely. First District Councilman Clyde Gulley was in total agreement with the school board, and said that not only was Valeska-Hinton a success, but so was the development that grew up around it (the Southtown urban renewal project begun in the ’80s). He feels that it should be the model for the city to follow.
But several council members felt that neighborhood schools should be the model in the city’s older neighborhoods, and they pointed to Whittier School as the model that should be replicated. Strong neighborhood schools stabilize neighborhoods, they argued. Second District Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken explained, “We’re not going to have middle class families moving into areas without strong neighborhood schools,” and that busing kids into and out of high poverty areas of town isn’t a true solution, nor does it fit with the city’s vision for its older neighborhoods.
Mayor Jim Ardis didn’t mince any words when he said, “We acknowledge there already is school choice and one of those choices is the one to leave,” and “we need to change the choice that we’re seeing.”
My Take
The School Board never misses an opportunity to remind everyone that “it’s all about the kids.” This is usually used as a trump card during discussions to imply that all opposing opinions are merely self-interested whereas the school board is focused on the children and what’s best for them. But I question how “eliminating poverty schools,” per se, helps the children individually. It doesn’t make their parents any more involved — in fact, it could potentially mean the school is too far away for a poor parent to be able to attend parent/teacher conferences and other events. It doesn’t change the negative influences in the neighborhood where the student spends his or her non-school time. In fact, if they lose a neighborhood school because of the consolidation, the neighborhood is further destabilized, which is arguably worse for the students. On the other hand, I can see how it would help the school in the aggregate — by diluting the number of poor students in each school, you can raise overall achievement on standardized tests. But how does it help those poor children individually?
Superintendent Hinton mentioned several things the school board is doing to try to reach individual children (education geared to needs of the individual student, build upon volunteer partnerships to provide a mentor to each student, teach behavioral and social skills, etc.). These are excellent interventions that can all be done in neighborhood schools just as easily as they can be done in community magnet schools. The only advantage of the magnet schools appears to be to improve school aggregate test scores so the district can meet Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) as defined under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Next Steps
The school board and city council will be establishing two subgroups that will work on these two issues: (1) The effect of choice/magnet schools on District 150 and neighborhoods, and (2) community school sitings and facilitating community development around them.
I would advise the private schools in the city to prepare for enlarged enrollments-school choice? Who is going to choose to send their kids to a school on the watch list? Lots of empty buildings in the future. Get some leadership, 150, and quit trying to be politically correct. Educate those who want it, and find a place for those who don’t.
I have been continually impressed by the reports of what Aurthur Perkins and the fine folks at Harrison School have done. Those kids are poor, but they are also defying the odds and are succeeding. I think D150 needs more Principals like the now-retired Mrs. Perkins, those who let the kids know they have worth and can learn, while, at the same time, letting them know that there are behaviors that won’t be tolerated. Poverty is no excuse. D150 should concentrate on making problem schools better by empowering those with the ability to do so.
Conrad is on the right track. Poverty is no excuse. Too many (mostly adults) use poverty (or racism, or you name the alleged “victim”) as an excuse and a crutch. It’s an insult to the millions of poor kids who do not drop out, do not become criminals, etc., etc. Poor or not, people have opportunities in this country, and they make choices. The place where 150 (among others) falls down badly is that by making all these excuses, and being “politically correct”, they reduce the opportunities, and make things more difficult. They fail to provide poor kids with the physical safety, the academic challenges, and the proper guidance and motivation to succeed. “Tough Love” if you will, works. Coddling and excusing laziness, addictions, and criminality does not.
In fairness to the school board, Gorenz specifically said that they weren’t using poverty as an excuse for low performance; he wanted to make it clear that while poverty is undeniably an obstacle, it is not an insurmountable one. They have high expectations for all their students and believe all of them can learn and achieve high scores, regardless of economic status. I don’t think we’re in disagreement on that point.
I’m all for the selective use of Magnet School; my daughter went to VHECC and had a great experience. However, the neighborhood schools need to be the focus of D150’s efforts. They need to look at what is going on at each school and take whatever appropriate action is needed to be sure that school is working. They need to be empowering Principals and teachers. I think there are some bad apples, but I believe that most Teachers and Principals know what they need to do and are committed, but feel hampered by the administration.. This needs to change.
There are many schools in areas of high poverty that are successful. One of the common denominator for the success of these schools is the high performance standards established for the students.
For too many years, too many District #150 teachers and administrative staff have had the attitude that “these kids can’t learn.” So rather than continuing the practice of “dumbing down the curriculum” and lowering expectations and standards, why not try what some of the other high-poverty urban districts have successfully implemented – raising the standards and performance expectations.
Just curious – in their State of the District address, did Gorenz mention that there are several classrooms across the district that still have not received textbooks? According to the administration, it is because of a “miscommunication”. But here the teachers are – four weeks into the first grading period with no textbooks for the kids. This is intolerable and just one more example of the incompetencies of he district’s top administrative staff and BOE.
I have to agree with those who look at poverty as a problem in the schools. . .I have read a number or articles recently speaking to the fact that when low income students are blended into schools with high income students, the low income students tend to do better (peer pressure being a big factor). . . .I have often thought that with the school boundaries being what they are on the north end of Peoria (where some of Peoria is actually in the Dunlap scholld district)the Housing Authority should build some section 8 housing in the Dunlap school district so the students living there could take advantage of supposadly “superior” schools (but, of course, this is one suggestion that will never see the light of day). .. .
There is housing of the type guy3 suggests in the Dunlap School District. Perhaps the answer is to have the legislature move the District 150 border further north to bring some of the students he finds desireable into 150, and reduce the need for Dunlap to keep building schools. Where’s Aaron S when 150 needs him?
I have been very supportive in the past of District 150’s efforts to improve, however, they have lost me with their proposal for increasing the number of magnet schools. There are not enough students performing at grade level in the District to spread them out among these proposed magnet schools to improve the overall performance of the group. And just what would motivate parents to send children that are performing well academically into that mix? Magnet Schools already exist in the District. Have these schools really generated a different demographic pool of students? What would be different about these proposed magnet schools that would result in a different outcome? And, as C.J. Summers points out, at the end of the day the lives and school performance of those children living in proverty are not changed in any significant way.
My children attended one of the best performing District 150 elementary schools and I still felt like they were part of some social experiment gone bad. It wasn’t that the principal did not care or the teachers were not talented, it was that the performance bar was set so low and the students in the classroom were so diverse that it made it difficult to really meet any given student’s needs and seemed to be much more than could be reasonably expected out of one teacher with 25 students in a class. Instead of the District sending high potential students from impoverished areas and giving them a chance to benefit from a better learning environment they appeared to send those that were the least capable. So much so, that most ended up sectioned off in special education. Seemed like a long and expensive bus ride for nothing.
It is no suprise to me that the District’s poverty level has risen to 70%. You get in life what you pay attention to. Our family was determined when we moved to the Peoria area not to follow the crowd out to Dunlap, however, after signing my children up for school and reading the mission statement posted on the wall, I had to wonder what I was getting myself into. It referred to reducing truancy and the drop out rate, and improving test scores to meet the minimum requirements — it should be no surprise that the reaction of many families is to run as far away as possible. As it turned out, my children ended having an overall positive elementary school experience and the District 150 middle school they attended was outstanding.
We are not currently living in the Peoria area. The District’s current focus and direction gives our family pause as to whether we will be able to consider District 150 for high school when it is time to return. Our family remains hopeful that the District and the City Council can find a way back to a middle ground.
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