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News Clips –
May 28 – STATE NATIONAL STATE Scott Miller, Pantagraph
SPRINGFIELD -- The radically
retooled version of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's education overhaul breezed
through the House on Monday, but some lawmakers said the measure is
little more than "window dressing." Strong supporters say
the reform holds the governor accountable for the happenings in "This is a good
day for parents. Parents will now be able to have a tangible body to
hold accountable and not a far away entity," said state Rep. Calvin
Giles, D-Chicago, who sponsored the legislation. The proposal, which
was poised to win Senate approval, does not address the state's funding
imbalance between rich and poor school districts, skeptics argue, claiming
the measure is only an attempt to save political face. "This is ho-hum.
What was billed as a major reform, (House Speaker Michael) Madigan said
it the other day, is 'window dressing,'" said state Rep. Bill Mitchell,
R-Forsyth. "This is about appointments, just rearranging the chairs
on the deck. That's all it is." Under the new configuration,
the governor will be able to appoint seven members of the nine-member
State Board of Education immediately and two more later. Subsequent governors
could appoint five new members during their first year in office and
four later. Also, local school districts
could choose to use state resources for purchasing and building programs,
and the state board would be required to seek legislative approval for
many of its regulations. Blagojevich defended
and praised the compromise Friday, saying the state board now will answer
"to the parents and to the children." He left little doubt
that he wanted the new board to fire state Superintendent Robert Schiller,
who was hired before Blagojevich took office in 2002. Under this plan,
the board would have complete discretion on hiring a new superintendent. The House approved the
legislation with 116 votes. Only state Rep. Art Tenhouse, R-Liberty,
cast a dissenting vote, saying the plan is better than the original
but still gives the governor too much power. "I just can't support
Gov. Blagojevich taking over what should be an independent body,"
he said. The legislation is Senate
Bill 3000. State
senate nixes school building plan extension House gives governor
more control of Board of Education Adriana Colindres, Copley
Press The Senate measure would
have authorized state government to issue an extra $2.2 billion in general
obligation funds so the popular school construction program could keep
going for another four years. Under Senate Bill 3001,
$550 million would be available each year. At present, the program has
run out of funding for schools that want to construct new buildings
or additions. The bill's sponsor,
Sen. Pat Welch, D-Peru, said its passage would ensure that children
have adequate facilities more suitable for learning. But Senate Republicans
generally opposed the legislation, which would give the program's oversight
duties to the Capital Development Board, an agency that reports to the
governor. In the past, the State Board of Education has been in charge
of the school construction program. Sen. Dan Cronin, R-Elmhurst,
said the bill would give Gov. Rod Blagojevich an unprecedented level
of influence over school construction and funding. In addition, he said,
the bill does not identify a
revenue source to cover the $2.2 billion cost. Senate Republican Leader
Frank Watson of The bill needed 36 yes
votes to advance. It attracted just 31 on a mostly partisan roll call,
with Democrats voting yes and Republicans voting no or "present." Welch said afterward
that he was not surprised by the outcome. He accused Republicans
of being "so obsessed with the issue of no more borrowing that
they're willing to sacrifice the children of the state of A list of about two
dozen school districts that expect to receive money under a construction
grant program includes districts in After the failed Senate
vote on Monday, Rochester Superintendent Tom Bertrand said he still
hopes that by the time lawmakers go home for the summer, they will approve
extension of the construction grant program. "We continue to
grow. The need is great," Bertrand said of his The South Pekin Grade School
District 137 has decided not to proceed with plans to build additional
classrooms, Superintendent Daniel Hylbert said. Those plans were developed
a few years ago. State Board of Education Also Monday, the House
of Representatives voted 116-1 for a compromise measure that would allow
Blagojevich to replace seven members of the nine-member State Board
of Education immediately. That legislation, the
amended version of Senate Bill 3000, is the result of an agreement among
Blagojevich and all four legislative leaders. The governor originally
had wanted to revamp the state's education system by gutting the State
Board of Education, which he derided as a "Soviet-style bureaucracy,"
and transferring most of its duties to a new Department of Education. But critics questioned
the constitutionality of such a move, and the weaker restructuring plan
eventually emerged. It would permit future governors to appoint five
members to the State Board of Education once they take office, and to
appoint the remaining four members two years later. The bill, which cleared
a Senate committee Monday night and was poised for passage by the full
Senate, also would give school districts the option of participating
in the state's prescription-drug-buying plan and a pooled purchasing
program. The governor believes the programs would help school districts
save money. Another part of the
legislation would limit the length of a state school superintendent's
job contract with the State Board of Education to a maximum of four
years, so the superintendent's tenure generally would coincide with
the governor's. Late Monday night, the
Senate Education committee approved an amended version of House Bill
929. That measure includes revisions to the state's teacher certification
system. The House already approved a similar bill. Compromise preserves
state board, lets governor oust current members Christi Parsons and
SPRINGFIELD -- After
months of vitriolic threats to dismantle the Illinois State Board of
Education, Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Friday agreed to a deal with top
lawmakers that would keep in place the bureaucracy he once termed "Soviet-style"
but sweep out the current board members he doesn't like. The compromise represents
an anti-climactic end to the fierce struggle Blagojevich promised earlier
this year, saying the board got in the way of effective education. Though the governor
declared victory in his quest to reform education oversight, he settled
for a far more modest set of changes than he originally sought in unveiling
a plan in January to gut the board and assume its duties within his
administration. In the end, the campaign
launched by Blagojevich appeared to have been largely reduced to a battle
of personalities. And the major concession the governor wrung from lawmakers
was the power for him to replace most of the present board's members
along with State Schools Supt. Robert Schiller as early as the summer. That clearly will give
Blagojevich the ability to put his people in charge of the nine-member
panel. But it also will allow the board to remain somewhat independent.
He will not be able to fire any board member at will, as he had once
sought. Blagojevich also gave
up several cost-saving measures, which were a major reason he gave for
pushing an overhaul. Originally, Blagojevich would have required local
school districts to cede to him control over construction of their schools
as well as the purchase of their supplies, prescription drugs and health
insurance. That, he had said, would save the districts $1 billion over
four years. Now school participation
in those pools will be voluntary rather than mandatory. Though the administration
estimates local districts will still save money if they take part, many
school officials questioned whether it would free up significant sums
needed to hire more teachers or make class sizes smaller or schools
safer. "In truth, I don't
believe these policy and political issues will have any impact on classrooms--be
it in Chatham or Chicago," Schiller said. "We [at the board]
don't make the decisions that matter to parents. All those decisions
are made at the local level." Blagojevich announced
the deal at a "I'm certainly
not promising miracles overnight--or miracles at all," Blagojevich
said. "I'm not in a position to obviously do that." Governor dismisses polls At the news conference,
Blagojevich also declared the proposed Rosemont casino virtually dead.
And the governor, who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on
polling since taking office, responded to his dwindling approval ratings
reflected in a Tribune poll by dismissing the importance of polls in
general. The governor's job review
comes as he heads into heated negotiations to resolve the state budget,
a task he approached last year as a popular governor doing business
with a mandate from the people. Lawmakers have already
regarded him with more skepticism this year. As a result, the work that
remains before them is so monumental that on Friday, House Speaker Michael
Madigan (D-Chicago) dismissed his chamber with a sober directive that
they come back ready to work past the Monday deadline and throughout
the week following. The education deal resolves
at least one key agenda item, which Blagojevich launched months ago
by declaring all-out war on the state board. Now that the governor
and leaders have agreed on something far more modest, some critics question
whether the furious rhetoric that preceded the agreement was really
necessary. The fuss over the structure
of the board was a "major distraction" from more important
issues facing education, said Ron Gidwitz, former chairman and a current
member of the state board. "It would not be
the way I would manage my business," said Gidwitz, who said he
expects to be one of the members who leaves the board this summer. "I
don't know that that kind of confrontation is productive. It's a distraction
and it causes people to focus on the wrong things. All of a sudden we're
focusing on the administration of an agency when the real issue is,
`Are the children learning?'" Schools chief lauds
deal Despite his reservations,
Schiller still praised the compromise as one that could restore stability
and authority to an agency that has been all but paralyzed by the upheaval
after the governor's takeover threat. "This depends totally
on the quality of the people chosen to be on the board ... and their
ability to rise above the short-term political concerns to deal with
the long-term policy issues of school reform," Schiller said. "In
retrospect, this could have been accomplished six months ago ... much
more quickly and far less painfully." Increasingly, the state
board's role has shifted to tracking and enforcing state and federal
programs, collecting and analyzing huge amounts of data. Because that
role is mandated by law, board cutbacks have disproportionately hurt
services such as curriculum development and teacher training. In the last two years,
the state cut $49 million and 300 jobs from the state board's budget.
Of the 480 jobs left, some 235 are paid by the federal government to
enforce mandates created by the No Child Left Behind Act and other federal
programs. "I'm not sure the
governor or the legislature truly understands the role of the State
Board of Education," said Howard Crouse, an Indian Prairie District
204 administrator who worked on a committee that advised the governor
on reforms that worked in other states. "If the legislature
wants the state board to focus on being a service agency, then they
can't continue to pass more laws that require more regulation. Changing
the rhetoric into action will be a challenge." Some educators said
they will believe the deal will improve matters when they see it in
action. "This elevates
the status of the state board and moves accountability to the governor,"
said Riverside District 96 Supt. David Bonnette. "Is that a good
thing? I hope so. Time will tell." Governor
doesn't get his way on schools Eric Krol and Sara Hooker,
Daily Herald "It's a burden
to the taxpayers. It's a drain on local schools," the governor
said in his State of the State speech. "It's an albatross to our
principals and teachers. It's not helping our children." On Friday, after lawmakers
rejected his sweeping reform plan as an unconstitutional power grab,
Blagojevich tried to put the best face on a compromise that fails to
give him much of what he said was his top legislative priority this
spring. "I don't view it
that way at all," said Blagojevich when asked about his legislative
defeat. "I think this is all moving in the direction we intended
it to go in. You can never expect to get everything you ask for." Instead of getting an
entirely new department of education under his control, Blagojevich
will be able to appoint seven of the nine members of the State Board
of Education on July 1. He would have been able to appoint five new
members in January anyway. And instead of requiring
all school districts to join purchasing pools for health benefits, classroom
construction and administrative tasks like bill-paying - affording Blagojevich
greater control over doling out contracts - districts simply will have
the option of joining such pools. "What he proposed
and what he got is like the difference between night and day,"
said The changes to the state's
education bureaucracy are part of an agreement announced Friday by Blagojevich,
all four legislative leaders and key lawmakers on education. All told, the measure,
which is expected to gain approval from the General Assembly by Monday
night, won't have much impact on suburban schools. "The schools are
going to be operating very well, they're going to be struggling financially
either way," said Donna Baiocchi, executive director of ED-RED,
a suburban education and research group. "So will this change the
success or failure rate of my schools? I don't believe so." Likely to be fired if
the legislation passes is state school Superintendent Robert Schiller,
who has clashed bitterly with Blagojevich since January. Blagojevich
all but said his new appointees would replace Schiller, and said he'd
be looking for a Paul Vallas-type of education reformer. Vallas helped
turn around the struggling Chicago Public Schools before losing to Blagojevich
in the 2002 Democratic governor primary. Schiller declined to
talk about his possible dismissal but said the compromise measure only
changes board members, not the structure of the state's education bureaucracy.
Blagojevich argued the changes ensure greater accountability in the
state's education system. Blagojevich estimated
his plan could save the state $1 billion over the next four years. Lawmakers
said it's unclear whether any savings will be realized from the compromise
plan, while the governor held out hope that the voluntary plan could
generate $200 million to $400 million in savings. Schools
fear tax cap may gut their finances Diane Rado, Tribune
staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter Ray Long contributed to this
report Property-tax relief
in an election year may be good politics, but some educators worry that
the assessment cap passed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich
quickly pledged to sign the measure, which would limit increases in
most residential assessments to 7 percent a year, beginning in Proponents of the measure
said that overall, schools will be able to collect as much tax revenue
as they did last year. But school administrators
and advocates believe that analysis breaks down when you consider the
effects on individual districts and particular school funds. Property-tax collections
are based on assessed value multiplied by tax rates and by a state multiplier
for each district. And in the tangled world
of school finance, it is difficult to predict all the consequences of
a broad change to the tax structure. In some of the most
dramatic cases, the assessment cap may prevent a district from collecting
the revenue it needs, school officials said. In other cases, it may
force districts to raise tax rates, when rising real-estate values might
have otherwise taken care of rising expenses. Other districts may face
restrictions on borrowing because the ability to borrow is tied to property
wealth. Finally, with the legislation
shifting more of the property-tax burden to businesses, school officials
fear a rise in tax appeals that have cost them hundreds of millions
of dollars in recent years. Appeals costly Riverside School District
96 lost more than $1 million last year because of tax appeals by businesses--a
huge impact on a budget of a little more than $10 million, said Supt.
David Bonnette. His biggest concern
about the assessment cap is that it will increase those appeals further.
And companies, he said, usually win. "I think that on
the surface, it's difficult for anyone to vote against tax relief, but
this is too broad," said Donna Baiocchi, executive director of
Ed-Red, an advocacy group representing more than 100 districts in Cook,
DuPage and About half of all The new assessment-cap
legislation has roots in The assessor's office
assured lawmakers that Cook school districts would collect no less money
overall than the previous year under the cap. That's correct if you're
talking about all the money the districts collect to distribute across
various accounts for school operations and other expenses, said Rob
Grossi, A complicated process The problem comes in
when you dig deeper into the complicated way revenues are generated
and distributed for each account and how the assessment cap affects
each account, Grossi said. His review of one Cook
district--Park Forest Elementary District 163--estimated that the district
would collect $384,000 less in operating funds if the cap had been in
place for the 2002 property assessments. The operating funds include
accounts for educator salaries, operations, transportation and maintenance
of school buildings. School officials said
the impact would depend on each district's financial circumstances.
A study of 25 Cook districts
earlier this year by the non-partisan Civic Federation in Toni Waggoner, a finance
official at the Illinois State Board of Education, said school districts
not subject to the tax cap initiated in the 1990s have not grappled
with this kind of limit before and may not be prepared for the impact. Michelle Kucera, a spokeswoman
for the assessor's office, said, "Each district has different rules
regarding their funds, so you have to acknowledge that a small number
of districts could face limits in their specific funds" as a result
of the legislation. She also said that Houlihan
acknowledged that the assessment-cap legislation "is not a perfect
solution; it's a first step toward overall change." Houlihan is
a lead supporter of a new group formed to reform the way Governor approves Last week, Blagojevich
said he would sign the bill, because "for too long, property ...
owners in Illinois in different parts of our state have been overburdened
because of our failure from the state level to meet our responsibilities
to fund education." Bill Huley, president
of the Northwest Tax Watch organization, said the bill isn't as good
as it sounds for taxpayers. He is concerned that
a shift in the tax burden to businesses could hurt and even drive out
companies that help fund school districts. In addition, the bill
doesn't address what Huley calls outrageous and uncontrolled spending
by some school districts, such as for six-figure teacher and administrator
salaries. "The whole thing
needs to be addressed from the spending side too," he said. "Nobody
is talking about some of the spending that goes on." Senate Republicans now
have to weigh in on the proposal, and they're not thrilled at giving
Rod Blagojevich so much control. Aaron Chambers, Yet it's stalled in
the Legislature. All four legislative
leaders stood beside Blagojevich when the Chicago Democrat announced
compromise legislation Friday to grant him power to pick seven people
for the nine-member State Board of Education. That would give the
Chicago Democrat effective control of the board, which administers public
schools in The House passed the
bill Monday amid a flurry of activity, but the Senate adjourned without
calling it for a vote. Sen. Miguel del Valle, D-Chicago, the bill's
sponsor, said he feared that the issue would get caught in end-of-session
partisan wrangling. "I've been trying
very hard to keep all our education stuff out of this political battle
over the budget and other issues," he said. The political dynamics
changed entirely Tuesday, and that may not bode well for the governor's
plan. If the Democrats who control the Senate had moved the bill before
Now Republicans are
in the driver's seat. As of Tuesday, bills with an immediate effective
date, such as the Blagojevich education plan, must be adopted with a
three-fifths majority. That requires Republican votes. Sen. Dan Cronin of Under "We're concerned
that the governor could create havoc or that there may be mischief going
on," Cronin said. "We don't know
that this governor can be trusted to make quality appointments that
will serve, without the advice and consent of the Senate, for five or
six months. They could do a lot of damage in that period of time."
Cronin said Republicans
have always been uncomfortable with giving Blagojevich that power. "Now
that we're in overtime (session), maybe we can do something about it."
Lawmakers are caught
in a budget stalemate. The Senate and House released lawmakers from
the Capitol on Tuesday but they could return here at any time to finalize
the budget for the next fiscal year. Cronin said he's talking
to members of other caucuses about delaying the effective date of the
governor's proposed appointment power until July 2005. Under that scenario,
the governor could announce his appointments, and the Senate would screen
them before the legislation is effective. Blagojevich spokeswoman
Abby Ottenhoff said the administration remained confident in the ability
of Senate President Emil Jones Jr., D-Chicago, to push the legislation
through his chamber. "The governor stood
with all four legislative leaders and members from all four caucuses
to talk about the importance of the education reform legislation,"
she said Tuesday. "We're confident that those members will stay
true to their word and help us get final approval on the package."
The compromise plan
also would let schools combine buying power to save money on supplies
and prescription drugs. Blagojevich wanted to require school districts
to join purchasing pools. Under the compromise, the pools would be voluntary.
Blagojevich asked the
Legislature in January to establish a Department of Education under
his command, and shift the State Board of Education's responsibilities
to the department. He settled for the compromise after House Speaker
Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, said the original plan would violate the
Illinois Constitution, which establishes the board. Notwithstanding the
stalled legislation, the governor would control the appointments of
a majority on the board come January. The terms of two members will
expire at that time, and three seats on the board are empty, and he
could fill them at any time. No budget
agreement in sight, Christopher Wills/Associated
Press Writer/Daily Gate City Gov. Rod Blagojevich
and Senate President Emil Jones announced they were united in supporting
a version of the budget that would increase education and welfare spending
by more than $1 billion. They accused House Speaker
Michael Madigan of ignoring children and the needy by supporting smaller
increases. The House adjourned about By failing to pass a
budget by the end of May, Democrats have given new power to the Republican
minorities in each legislative chamber. Under state law, the number
of votes needed to pass budget bills increases after May 31 from a simple
majority to three-fifths majority, meaning nothing can pass without
Republican support. That shift, many lawmakers
warned, creates uncertainty that could hold up a budget agreement for
weeks -- possibly even beyond the expiration of the current state budget
on June 30. "Happy Fourth of
July," Sen. James DeLeo, D-Chicago, sarcastically told a colleague. Blagojevich denied the
budget impasse is an embarrassment for state government's Democratic
leadership. "An embarrassment
to the Democratic Party would be to abandon our principles because we
have a deadline to meet," the governor said at a Statehouse news
conference Monday evening. Last month, he ordered state agencies to
come up with contingency plans for providing services in case the budget
expires without a replacement. Madigan spokesman Steve
Brown said the latest Blagojevich-Jones proposal seemed to be based
on questionable ideas, including a "vague" promise of 2.25
percent cuts to most agencies for a savings of $400 million. "Obviously we'd
like to get a budget adopted as quickly as possible, but whatever we
do will be based on sound principles," Brown said. Ego and political gamesmanship
may play a big role in the stalemate, but at the heart of the matter
are serious questions of who pays for government services and who benefits
from them. Will schools get more
money? Will more poor families be added to state health care programs?
Should businesses be asked, for the second year in a row, to pay higher
taxes and fees? For the third straight
year, state revenues are basically flat while costs -- especially health
care for state employees and the poor -- continue to grow. In addition,
state pension costs are unexpectedly high and money from selling an
unused casino license won't be available. Blagojevich and legislative
leaders have sharply different ideas about how best to close the budget
deficit. They met for about an
hour Monday to discuss the budget but emerged saying there had been
no progress. "We're a long way from getting this resolved,"
said Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson, R-Greenville. Blagojevich has proposed
about $500 million in higher business taxes and fees, although he said
Monday night that he had agreed to drop the most unpopular ideas and
settle for just $210 million. He also wants to take
a similar amount of special government funds set aside for purposes
ranging from fire safety to environmental protection, as well as use
borrowing and financial maneuvers. He would cut spending
by closing the Vandalia state prison and, under the latest version of
the budget, the But he proposed increasing
school funding by $400 million and health care for the poor by about
$600 million to cover increasing expenses and to add more people to
state health care programs. The Democratic governor
describes his $54 billion budget as a way to invest in children and
health care while fixing a tax system that has been skewed to favor
big business. But critics from both
parties argue the governor and his Senate Democratic allies are promising
more than the state can afford to deliver. Led by House Speaker
Madigan, the critics say the governor's budget would spend money the
state doesn't have and endanger jobs by increasing the cost of doing
business in They propose deeper
cuts elsewhere in the budget and smaller increases -- or no increases
at all -- for schools and health care. They also have floated a series
of possible revenue ideas, from gambling expansion to taxing the sale
of iced tea, that have been rejected by the governor. Despite the serious
policy questions, lawmakers say the dispute is also a power struggle
between the governor, Madigan and Jones -- all Chicago Democrats. John O'connor/Associated
Press Writer SPRINGFIELD, Ill. --
A $2.2 billion plan to continue a popular state-sponsored school construction
program was blocked in the Senate Monday, while in the House, lawmakers
overwhelmingly passed Gov. Rod Blagojevich's weakened plan to revamp
the State Board of Education. The state started the
construction program six years ago to help schools expand or replace
overcrowded and crumbling buildings. The plan would have
extended it for four more years, but Senate Republicans complained that
the state had no way to pay for it. They also worried about transferring
management of the program from the independent State Board of Education
to the Capital Development Board, which answers directly to Blagojevich,
a Democrat. The plan got 31 "yes"
votes, five short of the super-majority needed to approve more state
borrowing. Fourteen senators voted "no," and 12 voted "present." "You are going
to give the governor some influence and power over the construction
and funding of your schools that he's never had before, and I don't
know why you want to do it," said Sen. Dan Cronin, R-Elmhurst. Blagojevich has made
education a focus of the spring legislation session with his push for
greater control over the state's education administration, which he
has criticized as an inefficient, "Soviet-style bureaucracy." Lawmakers objected to
his original plan to gut the board and create an Education Department
directly under his control. But in a compromise announced by the governor
and legislative leaders on Friday, they agreed to give the governor
more control over the board's membership. The plan approved by
the House would let Blagojevich replace seven of nine policymaking board
members this summer, with future governors having the power to replace
all nine board members while in office. It also would require
the board to make long-term policy plans, reduce red tape for schools
and offer districts the chance to enter a statewide buying pool for
supplies. Blagojevich said it
would give governors a greater say in public education, even though
it falls far short of what he wanted. The legislation, approved
116-1 by the House, must return to the Senate for agreement on House
changes. "This is a firm
foundation so we can move forward and work on some of the problems that
are extremely vexing in this state," said Rep. Renee Kosel, R-New
Lenox. Lawmakers said approving
the reforms means the Legislature has no excuse now for not tackling
problems with the state's school funding system, which is highly reliant
on property taxes and considered unfair by some. "We have a responsibility
to the children of the state of In the Senate, the debate
over extending the school construction program also focused on funding
and gubernatorial control. Republicans argued that
it would be irresponsible to approve borrowing for the program without
revenue earmarked to pay it back. When the program began, the General
Assembly raised taxes on cigarettes, telephone calls and riverboat casinos
to cover the cost, but that revenue is still paying off the bonds issued
then. "We had a revenue
stream; there is none here," said Senate Republican Leader Frank
Watson of But Sen. Patrick Welch,
who sponsored the bill, said Republicans refused to vote for revenue-raising
plans, such as the one to close corporate tax loopholes that squeaked
out of the Senate earlier this month but failed in the House. Welch insisted politics
wouldn't play a role in which schools get state aid and he accused Republicans
of voting against schools and children. "Pulling the rug
out from under them is something they'll have to explain tomorrow,"
Welch said. The bills are SB3000
and SB3001. Local
districts hope state brings back building funds $2 billion grant program
would be cut from the state budget Matt Hanley, Beacon
News YORKVILLE — When an
addition was put on the high school here and a new middle school was
built in 1998, the The money has yet to
arrive, and now officials have learned it might never come. Yorkville and other
rapidly expanding districts are hoping that a plan to cut the popular
construction grants program out of the state budget will somehow wiggle
back into the final budget. But as it sits now, the $2.2 billion program
was rejected by state senators, and school districts are wondering what
will happen to their planned projects. "They're already
doing away with something we haven't even received yet," said Yorkville
Superintendent Thomas Engler. "If they're not going to fund it,
don't promise it to us." The grant program has
been around for six years and provides funding for new construction.
Both statewide and locally, the program has been an extremely popular
way to return taxpayer dollars to the district. However, the $550 million
allotments were scheduled to expire this year. State Sen. Pat Welch,
D-Peru, introduced a bill that would have extended the program, but
his efforts fell five votes short of passage Monday in a largely partisan
vote. Senate Republicans opposed
the legislation because it would give the program's oversight duties
to an agency that reports to the governor. In the past, the State Board
of Education had been in charge of the construction program. "It's Lauzen said construction
grants are "one of the best programs in the state," but he
voted against Welch's bill because he felt it put too much power in
the hands of But other local legislators
from both sides felt strongly the bill was vital to their growing districts. A representative from
the office of Tom Cross, R-Oswego, said the state representative considers
getting the bill back into the budget "a top priority." Press spokesman Scott
Hallaron from Welch's office said the senator expects this legislation
is so popular it will be back. "As it sits right now," he
said, "my guess is we haven't seen the last of it." In the meantime, it's
still not clear whether other districts can count on any further state
funding. "It would definitely
help the Facing a similar, if
not worse problem, Engler agreed with Murphy's assessment. "Last we heard,
we're next on the list (to get funding)," Engler said, pointing
out that $4.2 million would be equivalent to half a grade school in
the expanding district. "It's one of the few programs that are
really beneficial to growth districts." So now the schools will
have sit and watch, like students waiting for that last bell before
summer vacation. "It would be in
my thought that the district would certainly go after (grants) again,"
said Tom Hammond, chief operations officer for Businesses,
schools wary of tax cap John Roszkowski, Some area lawmakers
say new legislation that would cap property assessment increases will
provide welcome relief to overburdened taxpayers, but many schools and
businesses fear the impact it could have on them. The legislation, known
as Senate Bill 2112, has passed both chambers of the Illinois General
Assembly and is awaiting signature by Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The legislation, which
passed the Senate by a 30-27 margin last week, would provide for a 7
percent a year cap on residential property assessment increases. It
also increases the homestead exemption discount for homeowners and senior
citizens and increases the income eligibility for the senior citizen
assessment freeze from $40,000 to $45,000. "I think it's time
for property tax relief. It's something we've talked about for years
and don't do anything about it. This legislation is true property tax
relief for homeowners," said State Sen. Terry Link, D-30th, of
Vernon Hills, who was chief sponsor of the legislation in the Senate.
Rebecca Rausch, a spokesperson
for Blagojevich, said the governor plans to sign the legislation. In "We really want
to look at this bill and see if it will give tax relief to our citizens,"
said Lake County Board Chairman Suzi Schmidt, R-3rd, of Schmidt said the Schools Many local school districts
are concerned the assessment freeze legislation could hurt their budgets.
Mark Friedman, superintendent
of Libertyville Elementary School District 70, said he's concerned that
similar to the tax cap legislation that was enacted several years ago
in "We're still reeling
from the last tax caps that were enacted about 10 years ago. It's really
impacted the amount of revenue we have for our schools. If this is going
to be another cap that's going to hit us just as hard, we'd might as
well close our doors," he said. Friedman said since
the tax cap legislation was enacted in the early 1990s, District 70's
overall tax rate has actually gone down for many years, limiting the
amount of revenue the school district could request from taxpayers.
In the last four or five years, he said, the school district's tax rate
has declined from about $3.18 to $2.58 per $100 assessed valuation.
Rick Taylor, superintendent
of "At this moment,
we don't see much impact but conditions change from year to year. Potentially
it could have an impact (on our revenue)," he said. "The legislation
was created, in my opinion, because of the state legislature's refusal
to do anything to address the funding issue for schools in Businesses Businesses also have
some concerns. Dwight Houchins, president of the GLMV Chamber of Commerce,
said many businesses are concerned the legislation will simply shift
a greater share of the tax burden to businesses. "Basically it's
a cap on assessments of residential property and it's not good for business,"
he said. "Businesses can
either make money or lose money, and if they lose money, they either
go out of business or leave the state," Houchins said. "This
is probably one of the most dangerous things that's been proposed in
terms of tax legislation because of its negative impact on business."
State Rep. Ed Sullivan,
R-51st, of Mundelein, who opposed the legislation in the House, said
by some estimates the legislation would cost businesses in Cook County
alone about $700 million over three years. Estimates have not yet been
compiled on the impact it would have on Needed relief Supporters, however,
say the legislation will provide long needed tax relief to homeowners
and will not have as detrimental effect on businesses or schools as
critics contend. Link said that property
taxes for homeowners have been escalating at a much faster rate in recent
years than real estate taxes on businesses. He estimates businesses
would only see about a 1.6 to 2 percent increase in their property taxes
as a result of the legislation. State Sen. Susan Garrett,
D-29th, of Lake Forest, who supported the legislation, said from the
research she's seen, she does not believe the legislation will have
a significant negative impact on schools and it will provide much needed
tax relief to homeowners whose property taxes are escalating out of
control. "I voted for this
primarily because it gives needed property tax relief to our senior
citizens and also to residents on the verge of leaving their neighborhoods
or communities because their property taxes are going up by double-digit
increases every year," said Garrett. "We are at the point
now many people on fixed incomes simply cannot afford to stay in their
homes. To me, that's a crisis." Garrett said the legislation
has a three-year sunset clause "so we can reassess in three years
whether we want to continue the 7 percent cap or if there are better
options we should pursue." State Rep. Kathy Ryg,
D-59th, of Vernon Hills, also voted for the legislation. "One of
my top priorities is providing meaningful property tax relief,"
said Ryg, in a written statement. "We sought out solutions that
will main high property values but reduce the burden of high assessments."
Some homeowners are
skeptical whether they will see tax relief from the legislation. Larry Goodnow of However, Goodnow doubts
whether he would see a significant reduction in taxes if the 7 percent
a year assessment cap is enacted. He believes most taxing bodies will
try to recoup assessment increases in years when homeowners' property
values are below the 7 percent cap level. "I personally think
all it's going to do is spread the pain out over a period of years,"
he said. School
construction grants work well the way they are SPRINGFIELD -- State
Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, says the state's school construction
grant program works well the way it is. Bomke voted present on a plan
to shift control of the program under the governor's Capitol Development
Board "Many schools in
my district have benefited from this program. In fact, Senate Bill 3001 not
only shifted the program's administration, but it also failed to offer
any funding source or repayment plan. "To my knowledge,
school construction has always had a dedicated funding source,"
said Bomke. "Given the state's budget problems, the responsible
approach is to know how we are going to pay for this program before
we promise the money to school districts." Bomke said he wants
to see a school construction plan that does not jeopardize future grants
and contains a full funding plan, including bond repayment. Four–school convergence group names Committee of 10 By DAVID GRIMES for
The Hawk Eye, 6/3/04 MACOMB, Committee of 10 members
representing Nauvoo–Colusa are Dan Moffitt and Rich McGhghy, representing
The remaining two committee
seats selected randomly will go to Donna Tracey, Convergence is a merger
option that affects only the high schools of two or more school districts.
A school consolidation involves combining pre–kindergarten through 12–grade
classes from two or more school systems. The four–district The next meeting date
has not yet been confirmed, but will take place later this month. Cell phones a discipline issue in schools By JEFF KOLKEY, Northwest
Herald, 6/4/04 Crystal Lake South juniors
Stephanie Simpson and Christy McDowell remember communicating with each
other during classes the old-fashioned way. They would pass folded-up
notes written on actual sheets of paper. However, that mode of
written communication is quickly becoming extinct. Passing notes risks
interception and embarrassment. Now, teenagers just text message each
other's cell phones. "We text message
all the time," McDowell said. "You have to hide it under your
desk." "Or in your purse,"
Simpson said. The prevailing rule
in When teachers or administrators
see a student using a cell phone, they can confiscate it until the end
of the day. For a second offense, a parent must pick it up. McHenry East High School
Dean Mike Przybylski said the rules are mostly the same throughout area
schools. It is rare for students to have more than one or two offenses,
but some do, risking detention or even suspension for multiple violations.
Przybylski said he never
has suspended anyone for cell-phone use. In District 158, the
district's policy on cell phones was beefed up recently to account for
phones with photographic and video capabilities, and for personal digital
assistants. Officials said there
was concern that the contraptions could be used to invade other students'
privacy, although no problems have been seen so far. A ban on cell phones
was lifted in District 300 schools last year, Hampshire High School
Principal Christ Kalamatas said. "The policy here
a couple years ago was you were suspended if you brought in a cell phone,"
Kalamatas said. "Now it's become more of a necessity to ensure
communication for parents. Cell phones have almost become a way of life
for everybody." When clocks strike Jacobs senior Frank
Cook said he had to serve a Saturday detention because of his cell phone
and that he was threatened with a suspension when a teacher suspected
him of receiving a phone call during a final exam. Cook said he had to
bring an itemized bill to school to prove that it was not his cell phone
that rang during the test. But he said having the
convenience of communication is worth the risks students take using
cell phones. He works after school and needs to be able to call home,
he said. "My parents like
to know where I am and to make sure I am safe," Cook said. Jacobs sophomore Kassie
Quinn said there is only one way she ever has gotten into any trouble
over her cell-phone use. "If I go over on
my bill," Quinn said, "usually for text messaging." Once adept at using
the phones for text messaging, teenagers can type at speeds similar
to a typist on a full-size keyboard – but they just use their thumbs.
The phones help by taking educated guesses at which letter is needed
from the several available on each button. Keeping the phones on
silent mode means no one else has to know the students are communicating
with each other. School officials said
they are aware that cell phones and similar devices could be used to
cheat on tests or share classroom information. They say it is just another
thing to watch for, like a student looking at someone else's paper,
storing answers in the memory banks of a graphing calculator or writing
some answers in the palm of a hand. "Teachers have
been pretty vigilant," Jacobs Principal Linda Robinson said. "Obviously
the situation dictates what happens [for disciplinary action]. If a
phone rings in class, that's one thing. It's another if you answer it
and start talking." Educational reform for intellectual lightweights In a state government
that faces some really formidable challenges, this year's "Biggest
Waste of Time and Effort Award" goes to the governor and others
who championed pointless, power-grab changes in the way the State Board
of Education operates. As part of a compromise
with a governor who originally wanted to gut the current school bureaucracy
in favor of another one that would answer directly to him, the Legislature
voted to give Rod Blagojevich the authority to appoint a new State Board
of Education, though the Senate and House bills differ as to some specifics,
including when and how many at any given time. Ultimately they'll work
that part out. Oh, it's not as bad
as it could have been. The governor originally wanted a provision that
would have allowed him to dismiss members of the nine-member board "at
will"; the Senate, at least, seems unwilling to give him that.
It's not even that the State Board as is has been a lean, mean educational
machine, by any stretch. It's just that, once again, the citizens of
This does nothing to
improve school finances in a state where 80 percent of districts are
deficit-spending. It doesn't put one more additional teacher in an Maybe Illinoisans should
be relieved it doesn't do more harm, though we're not even convinced
of that. Indeed, this legislation now imposes politics on an agency
that has pretty much operated independently of them, with a sitting
governor who already has betrayed his bias to one part of the state,
during a legislative session which could have been devoted to addressing
some far more serious issues. However this ultimately
gets ironed out, it is educational reform for intellectual lightweights.
What a joke. =========================================================================== NATIONAL We are
the parents. Is anyone listening? No Child Left Behind
aims at a dialogue with parents. But reaching them has not been easy. Teresa Méndez, The Christian
Science Monitor Lucretia Jones, whose
two children are now grown, says that parents in her neighborhood had
previously been viewed as outsiders, only as valuable as the cookies
they brought to bake sales. Today, Ms. Jones says, at least she and
her peers are "sitting at the table" with the school administrators
who once locked them out. From her vantage point
- as a lifelong But she offers no credit
to the provisions in the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that
call for a deeper dialogue between schools and families, particularly
in low-income communities. In fact, says the seasoned
community activist, "I really didn't realize parental participation
was part of [NCLB]." It's been a problem
for the implementors of the new education law. Some of its key provisions
prompt states, districts, and schools to notify parents about everything
from their children's progress to their options for transferring out
of low-performing schools. But a study to be released
this week, based on conversations with 26 grass-roots organizations,
suggests that as of yet many parents - even those involved in their
children's schools, remain unaware of these options, or bewildered as
to how to exercise them. Yet at the same time
there is evidence that some districts and schools are making conscious
- and promising - efforts to reach out to families as a direct result
of NCLB. If nothing else, NCLB
has codified the crucial role that parent involvement plays in academic
achievement, a role researchers have been promoting for some time. Yet while a multitude
of information, detailing everything from reading scores to graduation
rates may be available, parents and organizers say few families know
where to look, or how to parse the vast quantities of data once they
do find it. One problem may be with
the way all this information is disseminated. Many districts rely
on websites. Yet to view a website, points out Lauren E. Allen, senior
program director for accountability at the Cross City Campaign for Urban
School Reform, a national network based in Even the old-fashioned,
paper letters can be confusing. Without a forum to "engage in face-to-face
question and answering," says Ms. Allen, parents often feel lost. "Testing, accountability,
teacher quality - these are not bread-and-butter issues," she adds.
"They're complex." At this point, she says
that communication between schools and families is best described as
a one-way exchange rather than a meaningful dialogue. In an effort to more
clearly convey state test results to parents, The change wasn't "exactly
spurred" by NCLB, says Brian Christopher, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania
Department of Education, but he adds that the increased testing and
reporting required by the law affirmed the need for a clearer way to
communicate results with parents. Joyce Epstein, director
of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Language and cultural
barriers, which have traditionally stood between urban families and
their schools, add still another layer of complication. In Though NCLB recommends
that districts and schools translate important materials whenever possible,
Pam Martinez, codirector of the community group Padres Unidos, or Parents
United, doubts that the parents she works with understand NCLB, let
alone the options it offers them. Of the country's urban
school districts, Shortly after NCLB was
in place, the Illinois branch of the Association of Community Organizations
for Reform Now (ACORN), the nation's largest organization of low and
moderate-income families, resolved to determine whether Chicago teachers
were "highly qualified," as required by federal law. "We saw NCLB as
a possible tool for parents to really improve the quality of instruction
in the classrooms," says Madeline Talbott, head organizer for Illinois
ACORN in Yet even for a savvy
group like ACORN, just finding the state's definition of qualified proved
problematic. Currently, highly qualified teachers are those who have
passed a state test in their subject area and hold an But the hurdles encountered
by ACORN underscore the challenges a parent trying to uncover this information
on her own would face. Today, the district
regularly sends out letters about its teachers, says Ms. Talbott, but
often they aren't particularly informative. One laudatory note might
sing the praises of a Yale educated teacher who earned his Master's
from Harvard and taught students in "We have some tools,
but we're still on this long march to get to the point where they're
useful," says Ms. Talbott. "We're not there yet, but we'll
get there." John Beam, executive
director of the "So we've demonstrated
... that we need to get better teachers in our classrooms," he
says. "But nothing in No Child Left Behind makes it easier to do
that." In another effort to
foster stronger partnerships between parents and schools, The degree to which
they've opened lines of communication varies by school, says Gail Gadsden,
who fills the position at PS 212 in the At her school, Ms. Gadsden
boasts, parents now volunteer one day a week to tutor their children
in their classrooms. But most of the parents
Whose fault is this
gap in understanding? "I'm not going
to blame the government," she says. "They put the information
out there, and we have to read it." AP, June 2, 2004 LOS ANGELES -- A school
district was accused Wednesday of violating the civil rights of a student
who was suspended for wearing a T-shirt saying "Homosexuality is
Shameful." The federal lawsuit
against During the national
event, high school and college students were urged to remain silent
to show support for homosexuals, bisexuals and trans-gender students. Sharon Raffer, a spokeswoman
for the district, declined to comment. "When are public
school officials going to learn they are not allowed to silence constitutionally
protected student speech just because they disagree with the student?"
said Robert Tyler, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed
the suit. Harper is a Christian
who believes "homosexual behavior is immoral, damaging to the practitioners
and to human society in general, and is demonstrably contrary to the
teachings of the Bible," the lawsuit says. School counselors stretched thin AP, SAN RAFAEL, California
-- As they help students deal with college anxieties, peer pressures
and troubles at home, school counselors see another crisis emerging
-- their own. Assigned to handle both
the academic and emotional challenges of children, counselors find themselves
stretched by caseloads that average 477 students, and questions about
how to best serve all kids. "I'm trying to
do all the things I used to do, but I'm just not able to do it as well,"
said Sue-Ann Joy, head counselor at In her district, for
example, that means less time for advising sophomores about college,
less help for students getting D's, less monitoring to see why some
kids aren't in school. Nationwide, the ratio
of students to counselors is about 477-to-1, an average that's dropped
since 1992 but is still almost twice the 250-to-1 recommended by the
profession. In states such as Younger children get
less service, too, said counselor Laurie Telder, who covers four elementary
schools in "It is the slow
burn," she said. "The kids that don't get the intervention
-- oftentimes you will hear about them in high school, doing something
serious, a suicidal attempt or a serious aggressive act on another student." Expanding duties At the elementary school
level, counselors help students start thinking about careers, build
communication skills and develop healthy attitudes about themselves
and their peers. By high school, counselors
assist students with study habits, financial aid, college recommendations,
class schedules, transitions between grades and high-stakes tests. Yet
they also help with eating disorders, girlfriend trouble, deaths of
friends and teen pregnancies. The people who set school
budgets know the importance of counselors, but other areas get spending
priority, such as helping children with disabilities and raising achievement
in the poorest schools, said Dan Fuller, lobbyist for the National School
Boards Association. "It's about the
education of children," Fuller said, "and that has to be the
priority." These days, many counselors
find themselves increasingly assigned to monitor cafeterias, bus zones
and detention rooms. So, for school leaders, the American School Counselor
Association has come up with a list of appropriate responsibilities
for counselors -- interpreting student test results is fine, for example,
but giving those tests is not. On a typical day, Joy
starts at After budget cuts in
her district, the local education foundation raised $67,000 to partially
restore counseling services; it hopes to raise twice as much for next
year. It may need to. As Joy
heads toward retirement after 41 years, she's learned that the district
may cut back to one full-time counselor at her school. "How could a counselor
establish any kind of relationship with a student under those circumstances?"
said school senior Lauren Farrer. "Seriously, can you remember
900 names?" Budget cuts That personal relationship
is critical, students said, as they talked of gaining confidence to
be leaders and staying motivated. But access is getting tougher. Public school counselors
spend more time on college advising than on any other single issue,
national surveys show. Yet the time crunch has shifted some of that
college advising to community groups, often funded with private dollars
to serve city and rural kids. More than seven in 10
counselors say their ability to help students deal with the competitive
college admission process has suffered because of budget cuts, the National
Association for College Admission Counseling found in a 2003 survey. Counseling has led to
higher test scores when all students receive it, said John Carey, director
of the Counselors are also
being asked to become leaders in school reform, including the push to
set higher expectations for minorities, said Reese House, director of
the Students at "Being a high school
student, it's really easy to get distracted with all the little things
going around," said Jonathan Smith, a junior with hopes of a football
scholarship at the Taking Candy From Pupils? School Vending Bill Says Yes By MARC SANTORA, New
York Times, June 2, 2004 ALBANY, June 1 - After
a spirited debate during which feeding candy to schoolchildren was equated
with giving them pornography and drugs, the State Assembly overwhelmingly
passed a bill that would severely limit what could be sold in school
vending machines. Under the proposed law,
schools would be banned from selling food that fails to meet minimal
nutritional guidelines. That includes "hard candy, chocolate candy,
jellies, gums, marshmallow candies, fondant, licorice, spun candy and
candy coated popcorn." The bill would also
ban the sale of soda water and other beverages that contain caffeine
or sweeteners. The state law would
allow similar sales and, unlike the city, would not require that the
drinks be 100 percent fruit juice. Assemblywoman Sandra
R. Galef, a Democrat who represents parts of Opponents of the bill
said that many schools had become dependent on the money generated by
the vending machines. But Richard N. Gottfried,
a Democrat from James N. Tedisco, a
Republican from Schenectady, called Mr. Gottfried's language overheated
and said he worried that hysteria over junk food could be taken to the
extreme, leading to what he called the Twinkie law. "You have to be
21 to buy a Ho-Ho," he said, painting an image of a world where
high fat-food was as regulated and as scorned as tobacco. "It is
obscene," he said. John J. McEneny, a Democrat
from But the debate as a
whole was unusual in a place where the fate of bills is largely decided
before they come to the floor. Nearly two dozen members took turns speaking
on the issue on Tuesday. Some expressed broad
support, while others objected to specific foods being included in the
banned section. In a speech that earned
him the nickname "Willie Wonka" from a Democratic colleague,
William L. Parment, a Democrat from "I object to this
inclusion of chocolate in non-nutritious foods," he said. He then
said a Mars bar had less fat and fewer calories than a hot dog and noted
that chocolate had long been a staple in military survival kits. "Chocolate has
helped many downed pilots survive," he said. In the end, the bill
passed 139-5. While chocolate would be banned, chocolate milk would
still be deemed acceptable. Dividing the Sexes, for the Tough Years By JANE GROSS, New York
Times, May 31, 2004 DOBBS FERRY, N.Y., May
30 - The eighth graders at the In a typical coeducational
classroom, said Everett J. Wilson, head of the middle school here, girls
on the cusp of adolescence would identify with Anne and freely share
their feelings about the book. Boys, by contrast, would snicker, swagger
or snooze. Anything to avoid making an unguarded comment. But this is no normal
eighth-grade classroom. At the Separated by sex, the
boys' and girls' observations about Anne's diary were equally thoughtful.
Anne was a moody teenager, fighting with her mother and attracted to
a boy for the first time, the girls said. Anne was having an identity
crisis, the boys agreed, sitting at the same seminar table an hour later;
she needed a safe, private place to express herself. Masters, formerly an
all girls' school, chose this configuration when it went coed in 1996.
The Mary Institute and This island of sex segregation
takes into account the different learning styles of boys and girls;
the uneven pace of their physical, emotional and cognitive development;
the hormonal assault at puberty when the part of the brain that governs
judgment is still forming; and the effect of a sexualized culture that
has made 13 the new 17. It also assumes that if girls gained confidence
learning in single-sex math and science classes, popular for the last
decade, boys might get a comparable boost in the humanities. "This is the single
most critical time in a child's life, and we are asking them to grow
up way too fast," Dr. Wilson said. "This way, the girls get
the opportunity to find their voice and the boys get the opportunity
to find their voice in an appropriate way. The conventional wisdom is
that girls benefit and for boys it's a wash. But we don't buy that here." Both groups welcomed
the separation for now, with the girls unembarrassed to squeal at a
spider in their midst and the boys free to bang their fists into baseball
mitts during class. "We're too different at this age," said
Lauren Bernstein, an eighth grader who nevertheless has a boyfriend
who sends her off with a hug before a science test. "When we're
like forming ourselves, this makes it easier to be open." The effectiveness of
separating boys and girls is in the eye of the beholder. The American Association
of University Women, which popularized separate math and science classes
with a 1992 report that said girls were being shortchanged in schools,
reviewed the existing research on single-sex education in primary and
secondary schools and reported in 1998 that the data was inconclusive.
There were positive results for some students in some settings, the
association found. But there was no way of telling if gender segregation
was the key variable or if boys and girls were simply getting better
teaching in the smaller classes found in private schools, which offer
a majority of the single-sex classes. Developmental psychologists and
others who study gender differences in adolescents say that traditional
markers of academic achievement are the wrong measuring sticks. This
isn't about how boys and girls do; it's about how they feel. Valedictorians reverse gender gap BETSY HAMMOND, The Oregonian,
6/3/04 They are the stars of
nearly every high school in the metro area -- straight-A students who've
led student government, played varsity sports, staged school plays,
headed service clubs. They are tomorrow's engineers, doctors, teachers,
astrophysicists, nurses and lawyers. And overwhelmingly,
they are girls. Across the Portland-Vancouver
area, The Oregonian found, girls make up 71 percent of the students
in the Class of 2004 who earned the grades necessary to be honored as
tops in their class. Yes, they're a brainy
bunch -- but not brainier than guys, say top-ranked girls such as Corissa
Lee at Gresham High, Laura Hartle at Hillsboro's Century High and Rachael
Averi at McMinnville High. Instead, they say, many
girls have a perfectionist urge that propels them to finish their homework,
study hard for every test and put a flourish on routine assignments
to get those As. They are part of a nationwide
crop of girls who have been targeted since they were little with messages
designed to correct the inequities of their mothers' generation: You
can succeed at math and science; every career is open to you; aim for
the academic stars. And it's worked, experts
say. Hundreds of area girls
in the Class of 2004 earned As in the hardest courses their schools
offer. Take Nicole Johnson,
one of 15 valedictorians at McMinnville High this year. No boys made
the cut. Johnson played varsity
softball and headed the school's hunger-relief club while taking Advanced
Placement calculus, AP history, physics and fifth-year French -- and
aced them all. She's headed to "More power to
girls, I guess," she says of McMinnville's all-female valedictorian
slate. The problem, some educators
say, is that boys haven't been similarly targeted with messages to help
them succeed in school. There are no book clubs
just for guys, no summer camps to lure boys into the humanities, no
mentor programs to show guys that finishing homework on time is the
manly thing to do, researchers say. During the 1990s, girls
maintained their edge over boys in reading and writing and began to
overtake them in biology, in chemistry, sometimes even in calculus.
For generations, researchers say, girls have posted higher grade-point
averages than boys. But only in the past decade have they accomplished
that while taking as many tough math and science courses as boys. Men still earn more
degrees in science and snag nearly all the tenure-track professorships
in computer science and physics. They far outnumber and outearn women
in technical fields. Men dominate the upper reaches of power, from the
U.S. Senate to the Fortune 500. It took less than 30
years for longstanding male dominance in college to be reversed, lightning
speed for social change of that magnitude, says Cornelius Riordan, professor
of sociology at Top seniors in area
high schools point to what they see as a stumbling block for male achievement:
sports. Male success on the
playing field is glorified, they say. When educators and parents tell
boys that classroom success is just as important, it rings hollow, top
students say. Michael Teschke, one
of four male valedictorians among 17 at "When I have good
golf scores, 10 or 20 people come up to me to congratulate me. Nobody
pays that kind of attention to great grades. . . . If my buddy gets
a scholarship for football, The Oregonian writes about it. But who knows
if I got a scholarship for academics? Being a scholar will take (a boy)
farther, but he will be more popular being an athlete," he says.
High school girls are
driven to succeed in sports, too. But students say excusing weak grades
with sports accomplishments doesn't work for girls. "It's a double
standard," says Laura Hartle, one of Century High's 12 valedictorians,
10 of whom are girls. "It's OK for a guy to be a dumb jock, but
when a girl gets bad grades, they call her a ditz." Hartle competes in elite
figure skating competitions but also drove herself to earn straight
As in precalculus, statistics, advanced economics and AP English. She's
headed to the Amanda Cline played
varsity basketball for McMinnville for three years. But rather than
glory in her victories on the way home from games, she'd sit on the
bus with a flashlight and a pile of books. A valedictorian, she will
study forensic science at When this year's high
school graduates were in kindergarten, Today, Hartle and her
counterparts snicker at that idea. Bailey, who now heads the Wellesley
Centers for Women, acknowledges huge gains have been made. She credits
programs that resulted from attention to the study. There's still a
lot of work to do to create equity for women in college, on faculties
and in the workplace, she says. In the meantime, she
says, her research center and others are studying ways schools shortchange
boys -- a problem that could prove harder to fix, she says. "When we said girls
don't get enough encouragement to do the same things boys do, everybody
understood that. It was seen as a move up for girls. But when we say
our boys should start doing the same things girls do, it's seen by many
as a step down. Skills that girls have ought to be seen as good skills
for boys, too." Kids' obesity may be worse than thought By Cristina Rodriguez,
Associated Press Writer, June 4, 2004 LITTLE ROCK, Ark. --
Forty percent of public schoolchildren in Arkansas are overweight, and
nearly one in four is obese, a sign that obesity among children nationwide
is probably far worse than health officials had thought. The findings are the
broadest and most recent comprehensive look at children's weights, the
result of a state law in "I think we'll
find as we go along that The In Those results, released
Thursday in "This is a childhood
issue now and it's sobering to see the number of children who have it,"
"I hope we start
seeing results immediately," said Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has lost
more than 100 pounds since being diagnosed last year with diabetes.
"A year from now we'll know parents are taking this seriously and
encouraging healthier habits ... some as simple as saying, 'You're not
going to sit in front of the computer screen with a bag of potato chips.'" Last year "...It is more
harmful not to identify the child as overweight," Nationwide, two-thirds
of American adults are classified as either overweight or obese by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while some studies
indicate a higher rate of people in the South are overweight than the
national average, some researchers believe the "This is a trend
we're seeing nationwide. The lack of physical activity, the nutritional
behaviors that we have developed over the years didn't start in Individual findings
are sent to the students' parents with guidelines on a healthy lifestyle.
Because the BMI calculation doesn't consider muscle mass, parents are
asked to take overweight children to a doctor to see if their child
is truly unhealthy. "A parent may be
aware that the child is overweight," Huckabee said, but may not
realize the "very serious medical consequences" of obesity. Experts say children
develop most eating habits in their home and changing attitudes there
is important in the battle against obesity. Carrie Roberson of Arkadelphia
took her fourth-grade son to the doctor when his weight problem was
diagnosed through the new school policy -- and he changed his behavior
himself. "We were not concerned
about his health, it was just kind of having the heads-up that if we
didn't watch the snacks and lack of physical activity he's in jeopardy,"
she said. "It was very good information. Having any kind of indicator
on how we can keep our children healthy as a parent is useful."
Illinois State Board of Education |
