Vito said "D65 unions would require that teacher salaries would have to be raised to D202 levels -- an enormous cost. D202 per pupil costs are already rumored to be at the $20,000 per pupil level."
==================
Why should the unions beable to dictate that ? In a company merging of divisions does not mean you change salaries. The unions are pulling the wool over the situation. First thing get rid of the union [or at least their power].
$20,000 ! That is 1/2 NU tuition and look what we get. My understanding is that few schools go over $12,000 and even then no significant correlation between expenditure and results is found. New Trier has lower costs than Evanston even without the $20,000 figure being true.
My kids and I live in west evanston. I wish there was a library near to us for my family to use, but there isn't. Sometimes we will travel to the main library, and park in the lot or take a bus.
I don't get why people don't think that if there should be another branch, it should be west.
The main is easy to get to from north and south branches. but people that pay the big property taxes I guess can't be bothered to ride the el.
Walk-in registration is too much of a burden for working parents. It is especially ridiculous if you are enrolling your second child. I didn't hear about this announcement and it will be ridiculous if I can't get my kindergartner into the same school as my older child this year.
"Our district is extremely complex." Any more so than the City of Chicago?
"Many members of the current District 65 board have little grasp of all of the programs and needs of our schools let alone could they oversee District 202 as well." Sounds like you are making an argument FOR consolidating the school boards (into D202.)
"Accountability to a single parent or group of parents would be impossible." I expect/demand both Boards or a single Board to be accountable to all the stakeholders in the school system- students, parents and taxpayers.
D65 appears to respond to a small, vocal group of activists, many without children currently in the district. There is no accountability at D65. As someone with experience with both D202 and D65, I can tell you D202 is far more responsive and proactive than D65.
Parents have asked over and over again fro D65 to align its standards with the high school, citing unbiased evidence that the state ISAT standard goals to which D65 aspires are way too low. D65 chooses to ignore those parents and evidence. At least three current board members have lauded the superintendent, praising him for what really are mediocre results.
Stuart Opdyke raises a good point and it shows why the system is busted.
The Teacher's Unions are running the show not school administrators. A sensible and fiscally sound solution to consolidate the school districts won't work because THE TEACHER'S UNIONS will demand the same pay as District 202 teachers.
In other words, district administrators back then did not want that battle and obviously thought at the time the unions would have their way thus the consolidation issue was not cost effective.
Anyone wonder why even after three years deep into a recession D65 and 202 teachers still get their annual pay increases? Anyone question why D202 spends $20,000 per student?
Anyone wonder why Evanstonians now have to wait with baited breath to see if the city union employees will agree to Wally B's. concessions in his current budget proposal such as a pay increase freeze, increase employee insurance contributions and unpaid holidays?
If the city union employees balk on these concessions then there would be $3 million more in Wally's budget proposal, which is now $9 million in the hole.
Again, city union employees have been getting annual pay raises years deep into a recession and until this month NONE have lost their jobs. Meanwhile, out in the real world, millions in Illinois have lost their jobs in the private sector over the past three years as their property taxes rise and property values decline.
Why is that? because the public unions, including teacher unions, have a solid voice, influencing the decisions made by government officials, many of whom the unions helped elect.
Perhaps someone should ask the president of the Evanston city union employees if the union will agree to the budget concessions. He's not hard to find. He happens to be sitting on the Evanston Budget Task Force, appointed there by the mayor who received campaign contributions from...wait for it...the unions!
There are only two ways to circumvent the union's power and influence in our government. 1)demand our elected officials run the government like a business and not back down to unsustainable and unreasonable union demands 2) VOTE OUT ALL DEMOCRATS
What does not make sense is that this is in-person registration is required of families who ALREADY have older students in the district schools, they just now also have an incoming Kindergartener.
At the very least, District 65 should consider allowing these parents to mail in or drop off paperwork including photocopies of residency and even an original birth certificate for their Kindergartener.
I think most parents would prefer paying for an original birth certificate document to spending an entire day at JEH.
This is such an unnecessary waste of everyone's time. For those completely new to the district, perhaps it is necessary. But returning families should also have the mail-in option for their Kindergartener!
I understand the benefit on paper of putting TWI at a magnet school, but the magnet programs are fully fledged schools with an established community that already have a mission.
My child attends King Lab, which has two focuses. One, it operates as an inclusion alternative for highly disabled students, a great asset for both those parents who want an inclusion model as well the other students. Two, it has an exceptional fine arts program that is taught at a high intellectual level, incorporated into every subject the students learn and IS CURRENTLY FUNDED ENTIRELY BY PTA AND PARENT FUNDRAISING. To throw that out and put the TWI programs there is a substantial change to what the existing families and faculty have worked years to build. In fact, it would require most of the faculty to be replaced, and mean that lots of families perfectly happy with the education model they have would be disenfranchised.
Bessie Rhodes has a very similar situation.
In addition, there are only 5 strands total at magnet schools - how many TWI strands are there currently? There wouldn't be much left of the magnet schools once all of the TWI strands were relocated.
TWI is an excellent program in which the school district took what could have been a problem (a rapidly growing ESL population), and turned it into an asset. Although I am constantly frustrated by poor school district administration, this is one their success stories. I am just not sure that it needs to disenfranchise those who appreciate the K-8 magnets for their successes.
You are assuming that there will be competent candidates running for school board. It is a thankless job and few are eager to run as we saw last election when most candidates threw their hats in at the last minute and none were very qualified - nor have they been very effective up until this point. It takes years to get the lay of the land before they can actually accomplish anything.
I will be there tonight! The goals of the library board and the branch supporters, when broken down into their constituent parts, sound doable to me. I am most excited about the plans for a west location which if reports are right might be coming within just a few months.
I am proud to live in a place like Evanston where folks can dare and dream so much about books and community and story. However daunting the task, I would rather live in a place that loves reading and sharing ideas and plans for inclusion of all and access for all.
I know folks have spent a lot of time talking about being reasonable. But these are not reasonable times. These are times for daring and doing together, for hope and even joy. For those of us following Lent, I would say let's fast from discouragement and feast on hope, fast from discontent and feast on gratitude, fast from anxiety and feast on patience and hard work.
Our district is extremely complex. Many members of the current District 65 board have little grasp of all of the programs and needs of our schools let alone could they oversee District 202 as well.
It is difficult enough to be heard by the administration of such a large district, I can only imagine how it would be with an additional ? students involved. Accountability to a single parent or group of parents would be impossible.
Ours is a very diverse community and educating them is complex.
For those of you who did not fully comprehend Stuart Opdyke's comment: for any consolidation of D65 and D202, D65 unions would require that teacher salaries would have to be raised to D202 levels -- an enormous cost. D202 per pupil costs are already rumored to be at the $20,000 per pupil level. The impact of that versus D65 administration cost saves should be analyzed.
I think with the economic situation Evanston finds itself in that nothing should be off the table. I wonder how other towns our size with a consolidated school district manage the union and pay issues. It seems it's a workable matter that would be beneficial both educationally and economically speaking. It should be seriously investigated before its brushed away too quickly. Especially since many Evantonians seem willing to forgo necessities like extra police presence in the warm months for luxuries like branch libraries.
To your point Ms. Berkley re cost of consolidation. The issue would come up every so often when I was a member of the #202 Board (1986-1994).We figured back then, given the disparity in teacher salaries for equivalent qualifications and experience between the districts ($10,000. per teacher) that it would increase our tax obligation by 2-3 million/year. That increase corresponds to the cost of eliminating that disparity even though it might be phased in over a period of a few years and even with a little promised help from Springfield to ease the transition.
Like you, I don't know what the situation is today but I suspect that there is still a marked difference in pay between elementary teachers and their ETHS counterparts.
Stuart Opdycke 1327 Hinman
In my my small town grade through high school [admittedly many years ago] students only had the choices of French, German and Latin. If the wanted Classical Greek or Russian or Chinese[I don't recall anyone wanting the later two back then], they had to wait for college.
Two way immersion is great once students master English well enough to function at a high level in their classes. With Evanston's schools and in particular ETHS I'm sure a lot of parents would love it if there children could take TWI in French or German or as is now popular Chinese or Russian.
Given the pay level of the superintendent and the length of the contract given----and I assume other world pay/contracts for other school official----serious consideration needs to be given to a recall of Board members---or at least turning them out of office at the next election.
Why we pay for so much administration when the population has hardly changed--and perhaps decreased when considering people with no children in the system---and test scores have not met standards, let alone a meaningful portion being able to function in the modern society, should baffle all.
While the administration has come up with all kinds of politically correct things like dual language instruction---instead of getting students to function fully in English----and culture based curriculum that will only lock the very students that need help in a second class education, they have not been able to see the real goal of a quality education through high standards and a faculty that is educationally [not "teacher courses" or "math for teachers"] prepared to teach to high standards.
It makes no sense to give the teachers tenure especially in under five years of service and using at least some of the criteria that universities use.
It makes it too hard to get rid of bad teachers and, combined with seniority, means the newest teachers are let go if there are cutbacks---many who may be better teachers.
Even universities are slowly cutting back on tenure. Yes, academic freedom is important, but teachers are there to teach not indoctrinate and academic freedom can be protected in other ways. It should not be an an excuse to keep bad teachers.
"[P]rovide a heck of a lot more continuity in education... ."
Oh, yes, it would. Right now, we have a significant number of students failing the standardized tests in high school and nowhere near grade level in critical subjects. Why is this happening and how can it be fixed?
Well, District 202 (the high school) blames ill-prepared students sent by District 65 (the elementary and middle schools). District 65 claims that it sends wonderfully prepared students (look at the ISAT scores, says District 65) but someshow, the students do not progress academically while in high school.
Everyone knows that the ISAT is an extremely weak test but are our youngest students well prepared in District 65? How could students regress so quickly in high school at a cost of $20,000 per year per student? What is the solution to this problem?
With one District, there would be no opportunity to blame someone else. The District would have to address this problem without the whining and finger pointing.
We would have a focus on the continuing academic progress of our students. The enormous cost savings would be gravy.
I have always been puzzled by the purpose of 2 school districts in a town of our size. It seems like consolidation would provide a heck of a lot more continuity in education and save some serious money by eliminating redundancies.
This comes up periodically and like many things in this city and in the State of Illinois for that matter - it comes down to the unions. The teachers in District 65 have one set of union rules/pay scales and District 202 has another. My understanding is that this where the discussion ends. Nobody wants to rock the boat. That's the crux of it.
Unions have exhausted their usefulness and have become greedy and out of touch with reality. This is why 65% (65%!!!) of our tax bill goes to fund the schools. Somehow, it's the city government that repeatedly takes the heat for the taxes - but just look at your tax bill if you want to see where your money is actually going.
I for one would vote for a combined district. Clearly - it would save some significant dollars.
Al says:
"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions -- it only guarantees equality of opportunity." Martin Luther King
OK, MLK didn't say this but a conservative writer did and that's why it's so offensive to those with differing political views. It's not the message but who said it. This quote is true unless you believe democracy guarantees equality of conditions - there's no such thing unless you advocate communism.
There is a problem here, Al:
MLK didn't say that..that is exactly the point. He was called a 'communist' because he spoke out against the segregated system where the democratically elected legislature gave better schools, better hospitals..and better libraries...to the ruling class.
He didn't go around justifying inequality by pretending that there was equal opportunity. There never was equal opportunity.
As for Kristol, since you don't seem to think that the source of the quote ( an odious neocon ideologue who helped get this country into Iraq) is relevant, let me offer a quote against libraries:
“Nobody reads books, people don’t go to libraries...Central and student libraries will remain; the remainder need to close.”
This program is entitled "Let's Make Music!". At 9am, there will be an "instrument petting zoo" where children may try out various instruments, and well as early childhood classes for parents and toddlers. At 10am, one of the Music Institute's resident ensembles, Axiom Brass will present an interactive concert filled with such games as "Find the Beat," "Where is the Melody?", "Who is Playing?", and "Musical Chair". To finish up, students join the brass as conductors and percussionists.
Vito said "D65 unions would require that teacher salaries would have to be raised to D202 levels -- an enormous cost. D202 per pupil costs are already rumored to be at the $20,000 per pupil level."
==================
Why should the unions beable to dictate that ? In a company merging of divisions does not mean you change salaries. The unions are pulling the wool over the situation. First thing get rid of the union [or at least their power].
$20,000 ! That is 1/2 NU tuition and look what we get. My understanding is that few schools go over $12,000 and even then no significant correlation between expenditure and results is found. New Trier has lower costs than Evanston even without the $20,000 figure being true.
Nice to hear the City Manager using an idea from the budget workshop!
My kids and I live in west evanston. I wish there was a library near to us for my family to use, but there isn't. Sometimes we will travel to the main library, and park in the lot or take a bus.
I don't get why people don't think that if there should be another branch, it should be west.
The main is easy to get to from north and south branches. but people that pay the big property taxes I guess can't be bothered to ride the el.
Walk-in registration is too much of a burden for working parents. It is especially ridiculous if you are enrolling your second child. I didn't hear about this announcement and it will be ridiculous if I can't get my kindergartner into the same school as my older child this year.
"Our district is extremely complex." Any more so than the City of Chicago?
"Many members of the current District 65 board have little grasp of all of the programs and needs of our schools let alone could they oversee District 202 as well." Sounds like you are making an argument FOR consolidating the school boards (into D202.)
"Accountability to a single parent or group of parents would be impossible." I expect/demand both Boards or a single Board to be accountable to all the stakeholders in the school system- students, parents and taxpayers.
D65 appears to respond to a small, vocal group of activists, many without children currently in the district. There is no accountability at D65. As someone with experience with both D202 and D65, I can tell you D202 is far more responsive and proactive than D65.
Parents have asked over and over again fro D65 to align its standards with the high school, citing unbiased evidence that the state ISAT standard goals to which D65 aspires are way too low. D65 chooses to ignore those parents and evidence. At least three current board members have lauded the superintendent, praising him for what really are mediocre results.
Stuart Opdyke raises a good point and it shows why the system is busted.
The Teacher's Unions are running the show not school administrators. A sensible and fiscally sound solution to consolidate the school districts won't work because THE TEACHER'S UNIONS will demand the same pay as District 202 teachers.
In other words, district administrators back then did not want that battle and obviously thought at the time the unions would have their way thus the consolidation issue was not cost effective.
Anyone wonder why even after three years deep into a recession D65 and 202 teachers still get their annual pay increases? Anyone question why D202 spends $20,000 per student?
Anyone wonder why Evanstonians now have to wait with baited breath to see if the city union employees will agree to Wally B's. concessions in his current budget proposal such as a pay increase freeze, increase employee insurance contributions and unpaid holidays?
If the city union employees balk on these concessions then there would be $3 million more in Wally's budget proposal, which is now $9 million in the hole.
Again, city union employees have been getting annual pay raises years deep into a recession and until this month NONE have lost their jobs. Meanwhile, out in the real world, millions in Illinois have lost their jobs in the private sector over the past three years as their property taxes rise and property values decline.
Why is that? because the public unions, including teacher unions, have a solid voice, influencing the decisions made by government officials, many of whom the unions helped elect.
Perhaps someone should ask the president of the Evanston city union employees if the union will agree to the budget concessions. He's not hard to find. He happens to be sitting on the Evanston Budget Task Force, appointed there by the mayor who received campaign contributions from...wait for it...the unions!
There are only two ways to circumvent the union's power and influence in our government. 1)demand our elected officials run the government like a business and not back down to unsustainable and unreasonable union demands 2) VOTE OUT ALL DEMOCRATS
What does not make sense is that this is in-person registration is required of families who ALREADY have older students in the district schools, they just now also have an incoming Kindergartener.
At the very least, District 65 should consider allowing these parents to mail in or drop off paperwork including photocopies of residency and even an original birth certificate for their Kindergartener.
I think most parents would prefer paying for an original birth certificate document to spending an entire day at JEH.
This is such an unnecessary waste of everyone's time. For those completely new to the district, perhaps it is necessary. But returning families should also have the mail-in option for their Kindergartener!
I understand the benefit on paper of putting TWI at a magnet school, but the magnet programs are fully fledged schools with an established community that already have a mission.
My child attends King Lab, which has two focuses. One, it operates as an inclusion alternative for highly disabled students, a great asset for both those parents who want an inclusion model as well the other students. Two, it has an exceptional fine arts program that is taught at a high intellectual level, incorporated into every subject the students learn and IS CURRENTLY FUNDED ENTIRELY BY PTA AND PARENT FUNDRAISING. To throw that out and put the TWI programs there is a substantial change to what the existing families and faculty have worked years to build. In fact, it would require most of the faculty to be replaced, and mean that lots of families perfectly happy with the education model they have would be disenfranchised.
Bessie Rhodes has a very similar situation.
In addition, there are only 5 strands total at magnet schools - how many TWI strands are there currently? There wouldn't be much left of the magnet schools once all of the TWI strands were relocated.
TWI is an excellent program in which the school district took what could have been a problem (a rapidly growing ESL population), and turned it into an asset. Although I am constantly frustrated by poor school district administration, this is one their success stories. I am just not sure that it needs to disenfranchise those who appreciate the K-8 magnets for their successes.
You are assuming that there will be competent candidates running for school board. It is a thankless job and few are eager to run as we saw last election when most candidates threw their hats in at the last minute and none were very qualified - nor have they been very effective up until this point. It takes years to get the lay of the land before they can actually accomplish anything.
I will be there tonight! The goals of the library board and the branch supporters, when broken down into their constituent parts, sound doable to me. I am most excited about the plans for a west location which if reports are right might be coming within just a few months.
I am proud to live in a place like Evanston where folks can dare and dream so much about books and community and story. However daunting the task, I would rather live in a place that loves reading and sharing ideas and plans for inclusion of all and access for all.
I know folks have spent a lot of time talking about being reasonable. But these are not reasonable times. These are times for daring and doing together, for hope and even joy. For those of us following Lent, I would say let's fast from discouragement and feast on hope, fast from discontent and feast on gratitude, fast from anxiety and feast on patience and hard work.
I will be there tonight.
Our district is extremely complex. Many members of the current District 65 board have little grasp of all of the programs and needs of our schools let alone could they oversee District 202 as well.
It is difficult enough to be heard by the administration of such a large district, I can only imagine how it would be with an additional ? students involved. Accountability to a single parent or group of parents would be impossible.
Ours is a very diverse community and educating them is complex.
For those of you who did not fully comprehend Stuart Opdyke's comment: for any consolidation of D65 and D202, D65 unions would require that teacher salaries would have to be raised to D202 levels -- an enormous cost. D202 per pupil costs are already rumored to be at the $20,000 per pupil level. The impact of that versus D65 administration cost saves should be analyzed.
I think with the economic situation Evanston finds itself in that nothing should be off the table. I wonder how other towns our size with a consolidated school district manage the union and pay issues. It seems it's a workable matter that would be beneficial both educationally and economically speaking. It should be seriously investigated before its brushed away too quickly. Especially since many Evantonians seem willing to forgo necessities like extra police presence in the warm months for luxuries like branch libraries.
To your point Ms. Berkley re cost of consolidation. The issue would come up every so often when I was a member of the #202 Board (1986-1994).We figured back then, given the disparity in teacher salaries for equivalent qualifications and experience between the districts ($10,000. per teacher) that it would increase our tax obligation by 2-3 million/year. That increase corresponds to the cost of eliminating that disparity even though it might be phased in over a period of a few years and even with a little promised help from Springfield to ease the transition.
Like you, I don't know what the situation is today but I suspect that there is still a marked difference in pay between elementary teachers and their ETHS counterparts.
Stuart Opdycke 1327 Hinman
In my my small town grade through high school [admittedly many years ago] students only had the choices of French, German and Latin. If the wanted Classical Greek or Russian or Chinese[I don't recall anyone wanting the later two back then], they had to wait for college.
Two way immersion is great once students master English well enough to function at a high level in their classes. With Evanston's schools and in particular ETHS I'm sure a lot of parents would love it if there children could take TWI in French or German or as is now popular Chinese or Russian.
Given the pay level of the superintendent and the length of the contract given----and I assume other world pay/contracts for other school official----serious consideration needs to be given to a recall of Board members---or at least turning them out of office at the next election.
Why we pay for so much administration when the population has hardly changed--and perhaps decreased when considering people with no children in the system---and test scores have not met standards, let alone a meaningful portion being able to function in the modern society, should baffle all.
While the administration has come up with all kinds of politically correct things like dual language instruction---instead of getting students to function fully in English----and culture based curriculum that will only lock the very students that need help in a second class education, they have not been able to see the real goal of a quality education through high standards and a faculty that is educationally [not "teacher courses" or "math for teachers"] prepared to teach to high standards.
It makes no sense to give the teachers tenure especially in under five years of service and using at least some of the criteria that universities use.
It makes it too hard to get rid of bad teachers and, combined with seniority, means the newest teachers are let go if there are cutbacks---many who may be better teachers.
Even universities are slowly cutting back on tenure. Yes, academic freedom is important, but teachers are there to teach not indoctrinate and academic freedom can be protected in other ways. It should not be an an excuse to keep bad teachers.
"[P]rovide a heck of a lot more continuity in education... ."
Oh, yes, it would. Right now, we have a significant number of students failing the standardized tests in high school and nowhere near grade level in critical subjects. Why is this happening and how can it be fixed?
Well, District 202 (the high school) blames ill-prepared students sent by District 65 (the elementary and middle schools). District 65 claims that it sends wonderfully prepared students (look at the ISAT scores, says District 65) but someshow, the students do not progress academically while in high school.
Everyone knows that the ISAT is an extremely weak test but are our youngest students well prepared in District 65? How could students regress so quickly in high school at a cost of $20,000 per year per student? What is the solution to this problem?
With one District, there would be no opportunity to blame someone else. The District would have to address this problem without the whining and finger pointing.
We would have a focus on the continuing academic progress of our students. The enormous cost savings would be gravy.
I have always been puzzled by the purpose of 2 school districts in a town of our size. It seems like consolidation would provide a heck of a lot more continuity in education and save some serious money by eliminating redundancies.
This comes up periodically and like many things in this city and in the State of Illinois for that matter - it comes down to the unions. The teachers in District 65 have one set of union rules/pay scales and District 202 has another. My understanding is that this where the discussion ends. Nobody wants to rock the boat. That's the crux of it.
Unions have exhausted their usefulness and have become greedy and out of touch with reality. This is why 65% (65%!!!) of our tax bill goes to fund the schools. Somehow, it's the city government that repeatedly takes the heat for the taxes - but just look at your tax bill if you want to see where your money is actually going.
I for one would vote for a combined district. Clearly - it would save some significant dollars.
Al says:
"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions -- it only guarantees equality of opportunity." Martin Luther King
OK, MLK didn't say this but a conservative writer did and that's why it's so offensive to those with differing political views. It's not the message but who said it. This quote is true unless you believe democracy guarantees equality of conditions - there's no such thing unless you advocate communism.
There is a problem here, Al:
MLK didn't say that..that is exactly the point. He was called a 'communist' because he spoke out against the segregated system where the democratically elected legislature gave better schools, better hospitals..and better libraries...to the ruling class.
He didn't go around justifying inequality by pretending that there was equal opportunity. There never was equal opportunity.
As for Kristol, since you don't seem to think that the source of the quote ( an odious neocon ideologue who helped get this country into Iraq) is relevant, let me offer a quote against libraries:
“Nobody reads books, people don’t go to libraries...Central and student libraries will remain; the remainder need to close.”
-- Saparmurat Niyazov (quoted here ) , better known as Turkmenbashi
And two different standards of success.
Once upon a time it was viewed as more expensive to have one district versus two.
I'd love to see the number run again.
Jane Berkley
This program is entitled "Let's Make Music!". At 9am, there will be an "instrument petting zoo" where children may try out various instruments, and well as early childhood classes for parents and toddlers. At 10am, one of the Music Institute's resident ensembles, Axiom Brass will present an interactive concert filled with such games as "Find the Beat," "Where is the Melody?", "Who is Playing?", and "Musical Chair". To finish up, students join the brass as conductors and percussionists.
are you talking about? What do Neocons and branch libraries have in common?
WE HAVE NO MONEY PEOPLE!
If you want your branch libraries, here is a good idea - purchase the locations and facilities from the city and run them yourselves.
Move on folks...