The below is compiled from data on the Illinois Sate Board of Education. More in this story: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/policy-shop/the-policy-shop-how-to-fix-illinois-public-schools-falling-test-scores/
Quality of Education is going down.
More money isn’t going to reverse this course. Electing the people who caused the problems won’t either.
Don’t get excited about Unit 5 being above Statewide average. Illinois is BELOW the NATIONAL Average:
In James Lindsay’s book – The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire’s Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education, he says –
“Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy is an abject anti-educational failure that should be ripped out of our Pre-K12 schools and colleges of education as soon as possible. Indeed, it never should have been adopted in the first place, and the people who saw to it should be held accountable for the unbelievable damage it has caused in the intervening forty years. These ideas were terrible and unfounded when they were written down in the 1960’s and when they were accepted in North America in the 1980’s, and they haven’t improved one iota in the intervening decades. Their adoption and inclusion in North American colleges of education first, and primary and secondary schools second, should be considered one of the greatest academic scandals in the history of the world. Indeed, the “Critical” theft of education should be considered nothing short of a crime against humanity.”
Paulo Freire is one of the authors referenced in Unit 5’s Equity Audit on page 122.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Herder and Herder.
Reading Proficiency and math proficiency are in the 40-45% range. That is unacceptable. Children are graduating who cannot read, write, spell, or do math. Schools are now indoctrination centers. Actual Academics take a back seat. Homeschool or private school. Vote No to the tax increase referendum.
Say NO to their tax hike. What have they proven that they deserve it? Proved they will mask your children for 2 straight years when children were not at risk? Proven they will take state mask money and still beg you for your hard earned property taxes later? Prove they will still beg when they don’t listen to you beg them to educate your children and stop teaching them to hate their skin color, their gender, their country, and their flag??? Elect a NEW school board, say NO to the indoctrinaters, and homeschool your children while you still have a chance to save them. They are YOUR children and Unit 5 failed them miserably and has the audacity to ask you to pay them more to ruin your future.
Unfortunately, many in Unit 5 and in our community see this decline as justification for a tax increase. To me, it is evidence of misplaced priorities within Unit 5. They are administrative top heavy and these overpaid administrators are making things complicated for teachers while at the same time depleting them of valuable financial resources. Handing them more money is like handing matches and a can of gasoline to an arsonist.
I would agree with you that pay and benefits of administrators needs to be on the table. To compare to other districts, Unit 5 appears to have fewer administrators per student. Are you saying that every other district is really bad with admin count or just the overall administrators in general is too much?
Could you also expand on what you mean by “too heavy” and who would complete the work if administrators are cut across the board? Like should they just ignore any parent questions? I’d love to hear more about your thoughts and solutions.
They need fire Shelvin, the $98,000 Diversity Equity Inclusion czar. They need to cut the salaries and/or replace Marty and Kristen. They’re both miserable failures. They can’t properly manage our tax dollars and they cannot properly educate children in reading, writing, and arithmetic. See the comment about that “From Here” contributed from the book, The Marxification of Education. Too many have no idea what’s been going on in the schools for decades.
JT, there’s your answer. Shelvin is shoving a lot of nonsense down the throats of teachers that they must comply with. More than anything else it’s a waste of people’s time and a diversion from actual teaching. All told it’s depleting resources from other more important things. In an attempt to create equity, they’ve dumped everything else down to raise up others.
Equity creates racism.
I have seen some asinine things here. This one is the winner!
Judging people by skin color is asinine!
I get when someone says they want to eliminate a specific expense, but the argument Fedup makes is that the district is “too heavy” on administration. Perhaps we all agree that many people seem not to like the Superintendent , but it’s hard to argue Unit 5 is “too heavy” on administration when they’re much less than other districts.
Perhaps the argument Fedup should just make us “I don’t like the district’s DEI expenses.” Which is fine, but a drop in the bucket, even eliminating 100% of those expenses compared to the shortfall. Perhaps a better option is to light up Sharon Chung’s phone to have the State of IL pay its bills.
Shelvin is admin and pro Thad staff too
Amen JT. Couldn’t agree more. Very well stated. My point about Unit 5 being administrative top heavy is not so much about there being too many or not enough of them, but how they’re managing the resources they’ve got and how you manage a structural deficit. Many of the excuses they’ve presented are certainly reasons for a revenue shortage. They are not however reasons for a deficit. Where is the accountability for years of mismanagement that’s brought us to this point.
If we’re looking at expenses that caused this deficit, it’s a few things: sports, other extracurriculars, non-required classes, daily custodial cleanings. You could lump in the DEI position, but that hasn’t been around long enough like these other non-required expenses.
Computers for kids, that has helped cause the deficit. New PE equipment. Art supplies. Any musical instrument. The problem is when the State of Illinois stopped paying its bills, the District allowed these things to continue. If we’re going by the argument of years of mismanagement, all of these should have been cut awhile ago. DEI expenses being much newer contribute more recently but not as much as these other expenses.
The problem is, as Diane says, laws must be immaterial. The State of Illinois does not follow laws, and the courts do not enforce them.