By: Diane Benjamin
The pencil pushers in Washington DC have created their own reality, the Census Bureau has convinced local government, schools, and the media that McLean County is growing. Instead of examining local conditions and applying common sense, the local royalty is undeterred. More government spending required, the population keeps growing. (Note: start collecting pictures of empty businesses)
Today the local bird-cage liner has a story about District 87 and Unit 5 over-crowding. If those pesky taxpayers had just given them more money by approving the Sales Tax increase last year, the article says everything would be fine. District 87 enrollment decreased this year and Unit 5 held steady, but both districts don’t expect it to continue. Their analysis is based on DC’s version population, not reality.
This is the actual enrollment from the Illinois State Board of Education: http://www.isbe.net/research/htmls/fall_housing.htm
Unit 5:
2010-2011 12,966
2011-2012 12,894 (-72)
2012-2013 13,514 (+620)
2013-2014 13,550 (+36)
District 87
2010-2011 5,526
2011-2012 5,474 (-52)
2012-2013 5,629 (+155)
2013-2014 5,575 (-54)
Have some fun. Go to the link above – then click District Summary. Locate any district. Your kids are grouped in 3 categories: 1) Low income 2) Gender (3)Race. Are all kids not created equal? Evidently it is vitally important to classify districts on Race, Gender, and Social Status. Isn’t that illegal for OTG? (other than government)
The question really is: Why was this story done? Last October they also did a story on enrollment, everything was declared fine then with little growth. Today’s story dwells on overcrowding. Reporting that less than 25% of classrooms are overcrowded is supposed to generate what response? A tax increase is needed? Of course, eliminating Administrators by consolidating districts wasn’t discussed. Neither was eliminating Common Core-both districts continue to claim it’s not costing them anything. Making better class distribution choices isn’t considered either.
Stories like this don’t create themselves. Keep looking for the agenda. Since government only has ONE, it’s an easy guess.
Side Note:
There is no classification for “citizen” and “not-citizen”. Your tax dollars are being used to educate kids here illegally. You aren’t allowed to know how many though, or how much they cost.
I thought normal west enrollment has been decreasing.
I work at ISU, and we’re always reminded about recruitment and how competitive it’s becoming because the number of high school aged kids in Illinois is decreasing. So, what’s the deal with this article? It sounds odd to me. Particularly with SF jobs leaving to other locals. Not to mention the earlier article in the local rag about Carlock elementary and its low enrollment. Bus kids there, it’s that simple. With the overall school age population decreasing in Illinois, this “problem” will take care of itself.
Why wait when citizens can be set up for schools needing more money?
Yeah the govt and media are always trying to convince us that there is some crisis somewhere that we need to pay more taxes for. THey simply cannot wrap their heads around the idea that Illinois sucks and people are leaving in droves as the taxes go up. Illinois is a high cost area and what do we get for our high cost? certainly it is not good weather or scenic majesty.